
T89 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011 933 329 5 



Prieo ^(y Cents. 



THE EEBELLIO]^ 



LATENT CAUSES 



TRUE SIGNIFICANCE 



IN LETTERS TO A FRIENP Al'.ROAli. 



HENKY T. TUCKERMAN 



" Truth orusbi<l to earth shall rise airain. 
The eternal y</ars of God are hers; 
But EiTor, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies amonsr his worshipptTS." 

Rt'.yant. 



NKW YORK: 
.TA]MKS G. GREGORY, 

(SrOOF.SSOR TO W. A. TOWNSEKD * CO.,) 

4Ci AVALKEK ?;TREET. 
1861. 



THE WORKS OF 



James Fenimore Cooper, 



Illus'irateo bv F. O. C. Darlev, 



The Illustrated Edition of Cooper's 
Novels is now complete. The series is 
comprised in thirty-two volumes, which 
were issued in the following order : 



The Pioneer.-;. 

The Red Rover. 

Last of the Mohic.uiy. 

The Spy. 

Wyandotte. 

The Bravo. 

The Pilot. 

Wept of Wish-tiin- Wi.- !i . 

The Headsman. 

The Prairie. 

Lionel Lincoln. 



Tlic Sea Liouj. 
The Water Witcli 
Homeward Bound. 
The Monikins, 
Satanstoe. 
Home as Foun.i. 
The Pathfinder. 
The Chainbearcr. 
Wing-and-Winy. 
Jack Tier. 
The Red Skins. 



Oak Opening,-;. 
The Two Adniira!,< 
Deerslayer. 
Mercedes of Castile 
The Crater. 
Artoat and Ashore. 
Miles Wallingford. 
Heidcnmauer. 
Ways of the Hour. 
Prec.iution. 



Subscribers \vl\osc sets arc not complete arc advised to perfect them 
at an cariy date, before changes in styles of binding will render it diffi- 
cult to match their volumes. 

Complete sets in variou.^ stvles of call and morocco binding are 
nearly rcadv, prices ol which will be announced in future circulars. 

JAMES G. (JREGORV, Publisher, 

(successor to W. a. TOWNSENl) .<. CO.,) 

NO. 46 WALKl.R SrRF.ET, N. Y. 



THE EEBELLIO]^: 



ITS 



LATENT CAUSES 



TRUE SIGNIFICANCE 



IX LETTERS TO A FRIEXD ABROAD. 



HENRY T. TUCKERMAN 



■• Truth crushed to eaith shall rise aijain, 
The eternal }-ears of God are hers ; 

But Error, Avounded, wrilhes in pain, 
And dies among his worshippers." * 

Br.TAXT. 



NEW YORK: 

(successor to W. a. TOWXSEXD .Si CO.,) 

4C WALKER STREET. 
1861. 








EntiTod, according to Act of Congress, in tlic voar ISGl. 

By JAMES G. GKEGOKY, 

In tbe CU-rk's Oflico of the District Court of the United States, for tlie 
Siiuthern District of New York. 




C. A. ALVORD, I-RINTEH. 



THE REBELLION, 



INTRODUCTION. 

Netv York, July, 1861, 
My Dear Sir: 

I can well believe your declaration tbat " we are all sick at 
heart at tlie sad events happening in the once United States, not 
merely in a selfish point of view, but for the sake of humanity ;" 
and yet you must excuse me for regarding your subsequent obser- 
vations as directly opposed to the latter sentiment, inasuiuch as, 
adopting the unauthorized and perverse statements of a certain 
class of British journals, you recognize only a political disagree- 
ment, and a spontaneous and unnecessary recourse to arms on the 
part of our government, ignoring the antecedent circumstances, 
the national scope and the inevitable obhgation thus to meet the 
crisis. Intimately associated, as you are, with influential organs of 
public opinion, and desirous, as you profess, to learn from those 
you personally know, the latent causes and true significance of 
this rebellion, I will trace them deliberately, and leave it to your 
candor to enlighten tlios« within your sphere, so that,, at least, the 
basis of a correct appreciation of the subject may not be wanting. 
^A'ith this personal explanation, and the documentary evidence 
furnished by the "Rebellion Record," forwarded herewith, I hope 
you will find reason to modify opinions derived from false premi- 
ses; in which case, I am confident your sympathy with truth will 
lead you to proclaim and advocate \\qx cause. 



THE REBELLION. 



I. 

THE CRISIS. 

So unfamiliar to the present generation of Americans are tlie 
phenomena of actual war, so anomalous, in a country o-overned 
bv a system of mutual confidence, is treason, and so rapidly have 
events succeeded each other, that vv'hat has transpired during the 
last few months, appears, in the retrospect, to have occupied as 
many years; and even now, it is difficult, especially for those who 
dwell amid the peaceful haunts of nature, and far from the scene 
of strife, to realize that this free, fertile, and self-reliant nation is 
devastated by internal violence, and betrayed by wanton treachery. 
Yet many and remarkable are the evidences of the calamity that 
come within the most casual observation; signs of the times so 
dramatic and novel, as well as impressive and touching, as to make 
liistorv a vivid reality, and fact infinitely stranger than fiction, 
even to the least imaginative : for what spectacles has it been the 
lot of n)any of us to behold, vphat emotions to experience since 
the advent of spring! Probably, the most universal of the sen- 
sations and sentiments which have almost proved a new self-rev- 
elation, is the discovery how inexpressibly near and dear to the 
human heart are the ties of nationality. The vicissitudes, which 
in the oM world make so conscious and prevailing the love of 
country, the private sufferings, hopes, triumphs, and sacrifices in- 
cident to public interests and relations, and directly springing 
therefrom, have been comparatively unknown to our young re- 
public ; her children have been so lapped in security, so free to 
pursue personal ends, so undisturbed by and uninterfered with 
the political machinery, that, like the spoiled oftspring of too in- 
dulo-cnt parents, they have instinctively confided in rather than 
earnestly cherished dependent feeling and faith. To such a peo- 
ple, national adversity — treacherous outrage is like the shock of a 
personal bereavement, whereby the heart first thoroughly learns 
how much it loves by the agony of its loss. To most of us, un- 
occupied with political ambition and passionate political sympa- 
thies, it has, for the first time, happened that sleep has fled our 
pillows, and tears bedewed our cheeks, and the familiar occupa- 
tions and pleasures of life become " flat, stale, and unprofitable," 



THE CRISIS, O 

and the sense of responsibility, as citizens, the sense of danger 
and of dut}', as Americans, been intensely awakened, under the 
pressure and the pain of a jeopardized nationalit)', under the ide- 
alization of that prophetic vision which the eloquent senator 
prayed he might not live to behold, " states discordant, bellig- 
erent, and drenched in fraternal blood." Half incredulously we 
repeat to ourselves the facts of the hour when withdrawn from 
their immediate cognizance; and, with a sorrowful wonder, that 
habit fails to subdue, gaze and listen to the tokens of the crisis, 
and the chaos of our national life — now thrilled by some deed of 
heroism, and now appalled by some threatened catastrophe; to- 
day impatient to frenzy at the stupidity or tardiness of official 
rule, and to-morrow bowed down with shame, or exultant with 
hope, as the turpitude of the disloyal, or the integrity and ardor 
of the patriotic alternate in the record of the hour. We have 
lived to see a stranger in the land weep at the treacherous 
ingratitude of Americans toward a benignant and free while 
he was expiating in exile his devotion to a subjugated nation- 
ality ; to hear aged men with honored names, welcome death 
that withdrew them from the scene of their country's degradation, 
and beardless youths describe the fratricidal rage which massa- 
cred their wounded comrades before their eyes; to hear the 
funeral march usher to an early grave the accomplished writer, 
the honest mechanic, and the prosperous citizen, who, a few 
weeks before, had cast aside the allurements of home, friends, 
congenial industry, and domestic comfort, to defend the capital of 
the nation from the ruthless invasion of vindictive usurpers; to 
see the soldier's uniform under academic robes, and hear the grad- 
uates of American colleges sent forth not to the peaceful walks of 
literature and science, but to the battle-field of civil war. AVe 
have lived to see the chief magistrate of an American city pallid 
with the consciousness of detected treason ; the domain where 
Washington wooed his bride, a camp to guard the republic from 
the sacrilegious violation of the people of his native state ; to hear 
German war-songs, the Hungarian battle-cry, and the Irish cheer, 
announce, from the Fifth avenue to the Battery, the departure of 
regiments to the defence of their adopted country; and the bugle 
charge which proclaimed Garibaldi's invincible forays under the 
walls of Rome, wake the peaceful echoes of the Astor Library.* 
We have lived to realize how precious, in its proud significance, 
could be the flag of our country, when insult and defiance had 

* The identical flag borne at that memorable siege, was presented to the Garibaldi 
Guard, in Lafayette Place, New York, when the regiment marched to the bugle charge of 
their Italian hero. 
1* 



b THE REBELLION. 

outraged its claims ; to recall, witli the tender exultation of a re- 
cent experience, the days when it challenged the world's admira- 
tion, as the symbol of victory; and invoke the memories of Perry 
and Decatur, Lawrence and Jackson, to revive and reassert its 
traditional fame; and to remember fondly every occtision in our 
own experience, v^dien the sight of that tiag, as the signal of free- 
dom, the token of nationality, the pall of dead heroes, encoun- 
tered on the " gray and melancholy waste" of ocean, at an iso- 
lated border fort amid the prairies, above the domicile of our 
country's representatives in foreign lands, and amid th-e forest of 
shipping at Liverpool, Hamburgh, Symrna, or Marseilles, the 
pledge of protection, the trophy of power, the emblem of liberty, 
the memorial of home ! We have lived to listen to an American 
officer, while he declared himself a prisoner of war to his own 
countrymen, pledged not to draw his sword in behalf of the na- 
tion to whom his allegiance is due, and which he has fiiithfuUy 
served from early youth to middle life, in order to escape from a 
horde of traitors, once his loyal comrades in arms, and whose 
lying machinations compelled him to tly the post of duty, or 
identify himself with a base conspiracy, the details of which are 
unparalleled in military and civic history, for heartless deception. 
We have lived to "behold the result of a series of compromises 
with ajid concessions to a slave autocracy, in the organized proc- 
lamation of its divine origin and its perpetual supremacy ; and 
to hear this most unhallowed violation of the fundamental princi- 
ple of free government flippantly accepted by men and women, 
who have not the excuse of interest in, or familiarity with the in- 
stitution, to propagate and maintain which the sacrilegious heresy 
was conceived, and is defended. We liave lived to witness the 
bribe of free trade offered to a Christian nation, and, if not openly 
entertained, not indignantly and promptly rejected, as an induce- 
ment to recognize a combination of citizens guilty of " sedition, 
privy conspiracy, and rebellion," deliverance from which is the 
authorized prayer of their established church ; and to have the 
worship of God profaned by the deliberate omission of that for 
the head of the nation. And we have also lived to hear the pro- 
test of the society of Cincinnati against these violations of patri- 
otic fealty, echoed in Exeter Hall, at the same time that they 
were ignored and contemned by many of the l>ritish journalists 
and politicians. And, more sad and shameful than all, we have 
lived to see u party, fairly beaten at the polls, under the influence 
of disappointed ambition, or rather the base section of that party, 
resort to arms and treachery rather than fulfil their part of the 
mutual contract; repudiate their obligations as American citizens, 



THE CEISIS. i 

ignore the claims of patriotism and the demands of justice— ay, 
and the appeal of humanity and Christian civilization, and reck- 
lessly seek to destroy what they cannot honestly possess. 

The elaborate and able discussion of secession theories, was 
the first duty of patriots and statesmen, in order to vindicate the 
Constitution, and the course of those who support it, even to the 
extent of civil war ; that the doctrine is not authorized by state 
sovereignty — that the Virginia resolutions of '98, and the South 
Carolina nullification of a later period, were abandoned as unten- 
able, when confronted with the emphatic authority of the Federal 
Government; that a decision of the Supreme Court of the latter 
state disavowed the doctrine ; that the enormous cost to the 
whole country of the original purchase, and subsequent mainten- 
ance of many of the rebellious states — that the necessity of con- 
trolling the outlet of the Mississippi, and the certainty of perpet- 
ual strife from any interference therewith by a foreign power, are 
insuperable obstacles; and that the triumph of the party that 
elected Lincoln was perfectly legal — are points of the argument 
that have never been confuted ; the reopening and the re-estab- 
lishment of the slave-trade, and the inauguration of conquest in 
the direction of Central America, Mexico, and Cuba, have been 
shown to be a political necessity to the Southern Confederacy, 
and to have such a vital interest for the rest of the civilized world, 
that they would entail thereon perpetual conflict until abandoned. 
But important as are these arguments, there are others derived 
from the latent causes and true issues of the war, which should 
be discussed and illustrated, in order to appreciate its true signifi- 
cance; and to these I desire to call your jjatient attention. 



THE REBELLION. 



IL 



DECLINE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT. 

One of the most remote, and, at the same time, most pervasive 
causes of the present disaffection, is the general neglect of civic 
duty. Flattered into passivity by an overweening confidence in 
the stability of our institutions, and repelled by the distasteful 
and troublesome process whereby the citizen's functions are real- 
ized — engrossed by private cares and enterprise, and the sense of 
our privileges and obligations, as members of a great republic, 
deadened by material prosperity, v/e have, to a great extent, eva- 
ded the claims of our country, and the vigilance and activity 
through which alone her security and sacredness can be preserved. 
The field being thus deserted, statesmanship has declined, and 
politics become a trade ; until the nation was aroused by the out- 
break of civil war into consciousness of peril. The strife of party 
has thus been degraded into a vulgar scramble for emoluments; 
the able and honored representatives of opinion, whose very 
names were once watchwords of fidelity and of fame, were super- 
seded by men of secondary ability and equivocal character; office 
was regarded as compensation for partisan service, with an utter 
disregard to fitness; patent abuses were tolerated , and corrup- 
tion so invaded the administration of government, from venal 
legislation to an imbecile executive, as to aftord every facility for 
treason. This demoralization was confined to no section ; the 
patriotic sentiment remained, but its practical and organized ex- 
pression was silenced by apatliy and indifference, until actual vio- 
lence succeeded base fraud ; then, indeed, the dormant love of 
country awoke — breathing in emphatic protest and earnest appeal 
from pulpit, rostrum, journal — assemblies, armies, households, and 
official proclamations. Against these tardy but true utterances 
of popular sentiment — these prompt assertions of citizenship — 
these cheerful sacrifices for the public weal — was arrayed the con- 
spiracy, slowly )jut surely matured by the want of respect for, 
and confidence in, the institutions thus allowed so long to be 
abused and contemned. The defection of so many officers of the 
army and navy of the United States, at the most critical epoch 
in their history, is one of those phenomena that cannot be ex- 



DECLIXE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT. V 

plained either by the pressure of local exactions, or the influence 
of a fanatical infatuation. The habit of irreverence, the deca- 
dence of public spirit, the discontent induced by want of sympa- 
thy, the hope of promotion, the fear of unpopularity, and the 
urgency of political adventurers, combined to seduce men of weak 
minds or blind ambition ; either the fever of faction, or the want 
of moral courage, rendered many of them an easy prey to the 
arts of designing demagogues, or personal disappointment coin- 
cided with fallacious theories, to jnake them oblivious of, and in- 
sensible to that honor which, in all ages, has been the first in- 
stinct and the essential characteristic of the hero and the gentle- 
man. When a Southern commodore was urged to resign, and 
take up arms against his flag and government, by the traitor? of 
his native state, he replied, " I have been in the service of the 
United States nearly half a century ; have commanded three 
squadrons, been at the head of naval bureaus, enjoyed every 
honor, and had accorded every privilege in the line of my profes- 
sion ; and whatever social consideration I have enjoyed abroad, 
and honor and prosperity I have won at home, I owe to the 
sanction and the service bestowed on me by the government of 
my country ; under these circumstances, fellow-citizens, would 
you, could you trust me, if I were to comply with your invita- 
tion ?" They replied in the affirmative. "Then, gentlemen," 
said the gallant commodore, "/ could not trust yo?/." Many of 
these unprincipled renegades, and others who more justly may 
be called irresolute victims of what they call a " divided duty," 
have, since their desertion, bitterly repented, and already the so- 
cial proscription inevitably following such dishonor, has proved a 
speedy retribution.- Still the fact remains ; and whoever is fa- 
miliar with the history of the American Revolution and the war 
of 1812 — whoever has felt pride, confidence and protection in 
his nation's flag in distant lands, or knows its significance as an 
emblem on ship, arsenal,- court-house and capitol, may imagine 
what a perversion of the highest human instinct and the noblest 
human sentiment there must have existed, to allow an American 
officer of the army or navy voluntarily to forswear his allegiance. 
The ingratitude of republics is proverbial ; and the excuse con- 
stantly urged for the defection of so many officers of Southern 
birth, is, that they have experienced so much recognition and 
sympathy from their state, and so little from the national govei'n- 
ment, that when a question of allegiance arises, it naturally is de- 
cided in favor of the former. It is superfluous to demonstrate 
the untenable nature of this, or any justification for disloyalty 
to what is dearer to an honest or patriotic heart, than preferment, 



10 THE KEBELLION. 

applause, personal success, or life itself; and, in the majority of 
■ instances of active treason among our naval and military officers, 
their antecedents suggest personal weaknesses, unfortunate habits, 
or a lack of integrity, which explain the infamous dereliction. 
Dissatisfaction with those who control their movements and reg- 
ulate their rewards, is common in the army and navy of every na- 
tion ; and the autobiography of Lord Dundonald, recently pub- 
lished, exhibits as corrupt an administration and as flagrant con- 
tempt of official merit in the British Admiralty, as ever disgraced 
the annals of any government. But there is a principle worth 
eonsideiing in this common complaint of the neglect to whicli 
national benefactors are subject under popular governments. In 
no small degree this is a natural, and should be a recognized con- 
dition thereof. The superiority of democratic institutions, as 
far as the individual is concerned,, is moral and intellectual, rather 
than material ; they involve, as their chief good, the necessity of 
self-reliance, and, in discarding the patronage of regal sway, the 
blandishments of courts, the tiatteries of rank, and largess, orders 
and titles, they assume immunity from dependence on arbitrary 
favor to be an inestimable privilege ; it is because manhood finds 
scope, and not because honor or fsivoritism allures, that the wise 
advocates of free institutions vindicate their worth. It is because 
they cast men on their own resources, and leave honor and duty, 
high achievevnent, and lioly sacrifice, to be their own reward, that 
they arc to be preferred ; thus are heroes developed ; not to po- 
litical but to social, not to government but to human apprecia- 
tion, must the republican soldier, statesman, savan, look ; his 
must inevitably be a labor of love ; and if he has not the soul to 
feel that herein is a dignity and a satisfaction beyond all external 
success, he is but a conventional representative of the sentiment 
and the system of free in.'^titutions. It implies character as well 
as ability to turn aside from the material prosperity which is the 
ideal of a uniform and equalized social state, and to devote life to 
nobler ends, where the encouragement which aiistocratic institu- 
tions lavish upon their successful votaries, is withheld. The favor 
of the casual "powers that be" in a republic, is distributed on 
other grounds than abstract merit; and no man of sense expects, 
as his chief recompense, just and generous treatment from those 
in authority. We find in our own brief histor}^ that modest 
merit in official life has often been overlooked in favor of pre- 
sumptuous self-assertion ; that it is not the most capable and hon- 
est, but the most available for party objects, who attain position; 
our best statesmen have failed, since the early days of the repub- 
lic, to reach the highest office in the gift of the people ; the sec- 



DECLINE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT.- 11 

ond-rate politicians occupy our legislative halls ; the most scien- 
tific officers of the army and navy often remain unpromoted, 
while their inferiors are advanced ; and it is thus in the spheres 
of labor outside of civic life. The American capitalist who aids 
public enterprise at great personal risk ; the citizen who conscien- 
tiously devotes time, thought and money to social ameliorations, 
without office or emohmient; the author who resists the tempta- 
tion to win immediate, though spurious popularity, by degrading 
his style and thoughts to the vulgar level of casual demand — all, 
in short, who toil, think, and achieve, from disinterested love of 
truth, of country, and of usefulness, have an instinct of heroism, 
the development of which is the manly blessing that compensates 
the lover of freedom and equality, for the absence of those facti- 
tious rewards which appeal to less elevated motives, in countries 
where arbitrary power metes out the guerdons. The votaries of 
arms, of science, of reform, and of letters, in a republic, must 
have that large " faith in time, and that which shapes it to some 
perfect end," and must realize that " they also serve who only 
stand and wait;" and this implies moral courage and native in- 
tegrity. The self-sustained rectitude, not the external recognition 
of Washington's character, was its enduring distinction. And 
consistent individuality must ever be a test of eminence in a dem- 
ocratic nation, beyond what any outward rank or consideration 
can aflord. There is, indeed, to the noble mind, a satisfaction far 
beyond what the touch of royalty can confer, in the intelligent 
and grateful admiration of a free people, and the sublime con- 
sciousness of patriotic self-devotion. He who can voluntarily for- 
feit thes«, is deficient in that manhood which self-government 
legitimately breeds; he who is insensible thereto lacks the essen- 
tial heart of heroism and of faith ; and it is, therefore, in the last 
analysis, presumptive evidence of inadequate character, when, 
under popular governments, her sworn defenders yield to those 
juggling fiends of treason, that "keep the word of promise to the 
car, and break it to the hope," 



12 THE REBELLION. 



III. 

PROVINCIALISM. 

Isolation is anotlier and a most influential cause of perverted 
feeling and extravagant opinions. The narrowness of mind and 
morbid sensitiveness induced by limited experience of life, and a 
confined and uniform sphere of observation, is proverbial ; the ex- 
aggeration born of village gossip, the bitterness nurtured by 
imagined wrongs, the fanaticism created by over-consciousness, 
are facts of human nature familiar to every student of history and 
observer of life. The broad views which characterize a liberal 
mind, and the logical and dispassionate conviction that belong to 
sound judgment, are results of contact and comparison ; it is 
through generous sympathy that we learn to estimate social 
truth ; the great laws of character, the phenomena of human ex- 
istence, the recognition of an idea " dearer than self" are acquired 
by a knowledge of the world, the habit of wide and varied asso- 
ciation ; shut out from such discipline, absorbed in a monotonous 
and special vocation, a certain dogmatic egotism is engendered — 
a false standard adopted, and a provincial tone of mind becomes 
liabitual. The only safety, intellectually if not morally speaking, 
for a man thus situated, is to be found in some gift or grace of 
soul whereby such influences are modified and overcome. Life in 
the Southern states, is, for the most part, devoid of other than the 
most exclusive local interest; except the bond of certain agricul- 
tural staples, it is, to a great degree, unallied with that of the rest 
of the world; in the cities, professional and commercial occupa- 
tions, and a foreign social element, bring a class of men under 
the influence of more versatile relations and open to them a 
wider field ; and this class present quite a diverse type of char- 
acter from the majority who, beyond the care of their plantations, 
the excitement of a race, or a game of hazard, care for little but 
local politics; the number and variety of impressions to which a 
man of average intelligence and sensibility is exposed in a great 
commercial metropolis, or an enterprising rural community, alone 
serve to ventilate his thoughts, enlarge his conceptions, and give 
a wholesome tone to his mind ; the most common form of insan- 
ity is the permanent concentration of thought upon a single idea, 
or of feeling upon one object ; Dr. Johnson said no man is wholly 



TKOVINCIALI6M. 13 

sane; and the ratio of his mental soundness is graduated by the 
range of his perceptions :. when these have no adequate scope, 
irrational tendencies are sure to develop, while the emotional 
nature, equally baffled, reacts in sensitiveness and passion. The 
individual application of these trite conditions, in estimating 
character, is within the ordinary experience of every observant 
person ; is it difficult to realize that peculiar circumstances may 
render them as obviously true of entire communities ? To the 
man of large experience and of br ad views, the evidences of this 
provincialism, especially in the interior of the gulf or cotton 
states, are striking, even on the most casual acquaintance with the 
people. Northern invalids who sojourned in the back country of 
the Carolinas during the Crimean war, were astonished to find 
how little even the more intelligent inhabitants knew or cared 
about those startling events — the record of which was pondered in 
New York and Boston with almost as much interest as in London 
and Paris; yet the planters who frequented the tavern of Colum- 
bia to sip toddy and compare notes, would not even read, far less 
discuss, the charge of the six hundred at Balaklava, the details of 
the siege of Sebastopool, or the death of Nicholas; these occur- 
rences involving the fate of Europe, and indirectly of the world, 
had no significance 'to men who vehemently canvassed the claims 
and prospects of rival candidates for county office. The exag- 
gerated pride of birth, as an exclusive distinction, which is such a 
local absurdity in South CaroHna, is fostered by the same isola- 
tion of thouglit and experience; the circumstance of direct de- 
scent from distinguished English and Huguenot families, being as 
true of New York and Massachusetts, but less considered, less 
vaunted, because of the more varied interests and more legitimate 
social ambition there prevalent. The first impression which per- 
sonal contact with this intense provincialism makes upon a liberal 
mind, is a conviction, that the best use to which the public finances 
of those states could be applied, would be to pay the expenses of 
foreign and home travel for the enlargement and discipline of the 
people; thus only would it seem practicable to widen to their 
vision the narrow bounds of local into the broad and noble asso- 
ciations of national life — to correct the morbid egotism and child- 
ish self-importance bred from a limited and mutual complacency, 
whereby visionary ideas in politics and exclusive standards of 
social character are engendered and maintained. It must be con- 
fessed, however, that this assumed superiority — this curious sur- 
vival of feudal traditions in the nineteenth century, is often incor- 
rigible ; a native of South Carolina, one of a party of Americans 
travelling in Europe, when the hotel registers were brought him 



14 THE EEBELLION. 

for signature, instead of recording himself as a citizen of the 
United States, tlian which no national title then secured greater 
respoct abroad, insisted upon writing La Carolina as his native 
country, which proceeding continually led to the mistake of his 
being regarded as an inhabitant of an obscure South American 
town. Some years ago, a deputation of planters from the same 
state visited Savannah, Georgia, where their costume, which re- 
sembled the worn and dingy vestments of overseers, excited sur- 
prise ; these same individuals were subsequently encountered in 
the streets of Charleston dressed like gentlemen, and when their 
Savannah visitors inquired the reason of their coming to Georgia 
in old clothes, they were informed it was done to indicate the 
social estimation in which the first families of the one state held 
those of the other. Such a puerile exhibition of arrant conceit is 
incredible in this age and country ; but it signalizes the provincial 
bigotry which, in more grave interests, ignores the laws of nature 
herself, in wild schemes of local aggrandizements, interprets mis- 
fortunes which originate in habits of life and facts of climate, to- 
pography, labor and temperament, into wrongs inflicted by more 
prosperous communities — to be revenged by violence and craft — 
and would immolate a nation's happiness and dignity upon the 
degraded and diminutive altar of superstitious self-love. One 
might imagine a latent satire in the description by an early trav- 
eller in America, of the indigenous tree clio-en by the truculent 
and exclusive Carolinians, as a substitute for the flag " known and 
honored throughout the world." 

" The palmetto royal, or Adam's needle, is a singular tree ; they 
grow so thick together that a bird can scarcely 2^cii'Ctrate between 
them. The stiff leaves of this sword plant, standing straight out 
from the trunk, /orm abarrier that neither man nor beast can pass ; 
it rises with an erect stem about ten or twelve feet high, crowned 
with a chaplet of iagger-like green leaves, with a stiff\ sharp spur 
at the end. This thorny croivn is tipped with a pyramid of white 
flowers, shaped like a tulip or lily ; to these flowers succeeds a 
large fruit, in form like a cucumber, but, when ripe, of a deep 
purple color.'' 

The incessant interchange of commodities between the interior 
and seaboard cities and towns of New York, the exigi'iicies of local 
trade and social commuuication in New England, the Middle and 
the Western States, continually bring together the people of 
those regions so that there is little consciousness of the geo 
graphical limits of each ; and no strong prejudice or partiality, 
except what finds vent in jocose comparisons and stoical self-criti- 
cism ; \rhereas the isolated habits of the South, preclude in- 



PROVINCIALISM. 15 

timate acquaintance, not only with the opposite section, but 
between the adjacent states. Few of the inhabitants wander 
far from their homes, and no one who has explored that part of 
the country, fails to be struck with the mutual ignorance and 
jealousy that prevail, so that no idea can be more false thau 
that which attributes a homogeneous character and feeling to the 
population. It is this condition which, on the one hand pre- 
vents uniform political and social sympathy, and on the other, 
circumscribes and often annihilates national aspiration, attach- 
ment and pride, which thrive under the more free and familiar com- 
munication and intercourse of the Xorth, West and East. Yet it 
is surprising that the mere experience of that importance and 
facility which a national sanction imparts to a small and remote 
community, does not quicken the sense of its value and intere-t. 
A few months ago, for instance, a Savannah lawyer returned from 
China, after liaving, for the first time in history, broken throngh 
the traditional excliisiveness of the Chinese and been admitted 
within the jealous precincts of Pekin ; and this triumph over 
antiquated precedent in a distant quarter of the globe, was 
achieved solely by virtue of the prestige and the protection 
derived from the American government, whose ambassador he 
was. Such an experience one would imagine would open the 
eyes of his neighbors as well as himself, to -the honor and ef- 
ficiency attached to the flag they now profess to despise. De- 
spite the variety of natural and social features and the wide dis- 
tances of the republic — everywhere are tokens and associa- 
tions of a common fame and common source of prosperity. The 
name of the very fort against wliich the little state of South 
Carolina opened her batteries, reproaches the act as paricidal, 
for it was baptized for a Southern general who helped to win the 
independence of the nation. In Georgia, too, is the plantation a 
grateful state bestowed upon a Rhode Island officer for his emi- 
nent services in the same great cause, and there also is his grave ; 
while the most popular and the heart-inspired tribute to our 
country's banner, was inspired by the sight of its starry folds 
when revealed to a prisoner of war, who with rapture beheld 
them still floating, at dawn, over the city where, a few weeks 
ago, that flag was only raised by patriotic intrepidity. And if a 
foreign visitor, having explored the granite hills, gnarled orchards 
and teeming marts and factories of New England, coursed over 
her fleecy snow or inhaled her bleak winds, when roaming amid 
the cypress swamps and canebrakes of Louisiana, hearing the 
bittern's cry and sweltering under the clammy heat — should 
wonder at the elasticity of a system of self-government which can 



16 THE REBELLION. 

include sneh remote natural landscapes — liis surprise will dimin- 
ish when he turns to the history of the state, and after reading 
of so many and such diverse political dominations, and their 
results, ponders the conclusion of the historian, who declares that 
"there were none of those associations — not a link of that mystic 
chain connecting the present with the past — which produce an 
attachment to locality. It was not when a poor colony, and 
when given away like a farm, that she prospered. This miracle 
was to be the consequence of the apparition of a banner which 
was not ill existence at the time, which was to be the labarura 
of the advent of liberty, the harbinger of the regeneration of 
nations, and which was to form so important an era in the history 
of mankind."* 

This provincial instead of national spirit, this local instead of 
patriotic sentiment, which blinds with prejudice and dwarfs with 
passion the grand, beautiful and auspicious feeling of American 
citizenship, lias been the moral basis of intrigue and seduction 
whereon ambitions Southern politicians have worked: the more 
intellectual among them by artful appeals to narrow motives, by 
ingenious theories of government, and extravagant assertion of 
state-rights, and especially by attributing the inferior industrial 
development and commercial prosperity of the South to legisla- 
tion and Federal authority^ have gradually educated the people 
into a belief in their sophistries ; some availing themselves of 
this expedient for a temporary party object, and others, like Cal- 
houn, deliberately alienating the popular niind from nationality 
and moulding it into sectionalism. It may strike a distant ob- 
server as impossible thus to debauch the civic integrity of wliole 
states, where free discussion prevails ; but the possibility grows 
out of the peculiar organization and condition of society in that 
region ; a comparatively few wealthy planters, a large servile 
race, and between these extremes, the " landless resolutes" or poor 
wliites, ignorant, desperate, and with neither the scope nor the 
motive which free labor insures — offer ample verge for the 
domination of politicians; what is understood practically in both 
Old and New England by "the formation of public opinion," a 
process which in the end vaiupiishes error and makes truth mani- 
fest, is all but unknown ; there is no vast and intelligent and inter- 
mediate class between the wealthy land-owner and the poor 
laborer ; it is easy for wealth and wit to combine and impinge 
upon the rabble a political creed — while appeals to interest, 
however untenable, arc singularly effective among owners of 

* Gaverre's History of Louisiania. 



PROVINCIALISM. IT 

estates whose incomes are precarious, and whose pride will not 
permit them to recognize the cause and the remedy of their dis- 
couragements at home, when they can delude themselves into the 
belief that the origin of their inferior success is external. Tem- 
perament favors these irrational theories ; isolation confirms them ;; 
falsehood is easily propagated, ill-will easily inflamed, jealousy 
easily excited in such a community, Avhen a few enterprising 
minds sagaciously delude and inflame that native arrogance of 
temper which all philosophic observers, from Thomas Jefferson 
to John Stuart Mill, unite in declaring an inevitable result of 
" property in man." The evidence of the passing hour attests 
that this process is habitual. A naval officer of Southern birth 
the instant he heard of the secession of his native stato, resigned 
his commission, " because his father, thirty years ago, had taught 
him it would be his duty in such an exigency/' The son of one 
of the rebellious leaders was ordered by his father to resign as a 
member of the U. S. Naval School, and endeavored to obtain his 
teacher's sanction to resist the command. " My father, sir," said 
the boy with his eyes full of tears, " is a political enthusiast,'' 
But the fallacy of the doctrine thus maintained is proved by the 
absolute inconsistency of the recorded convictions of the very 
men who now cast off their allegiance to their country, their 
oaths and their duty. The history of the world affords no such 
examples of shameless apostasy ; not years and months, but 
weeks, days, and even hours only, intervene between the most 
solemn recognition of the paramount claims of national fealty and 
the benignant character of national institutions, and the heartless 
and I'eckless repudiation of both. Not only do the words of 
their own mouths condemn them, but, in many instances, where 
there lingers moral sensibility, the struggle between ambition and 
duty, honor and treachery, has made young men wear the aspect 
of age, racked the brain to the verge of insanity, and induced 
self-abandonment to strong drink or seclusion and remorse. And 
where hardihood precludes such effects, the mendacity of treason 
has been so unblushing and excessive, as to demoralize fatally 
both the men and the cause. Unfortunately for that charitable 
judgment which under circumstances somewhat akin, has gained 
for the adherents of a bad cause, the compassion which belongs 
to involuntary but generous wrong — from first to last the absolute 
proof of wilful falsehood and faithlessness has attended the rec- 
ognized representatives of the most wicked and wanton conspir- 
acy ever aimed at the life of a great nation. 



18 THE REBELLION. 



IV. 

CHARACTER. 

To analyze character, whether national or individual, requires 
opportunities of study, and power of insight and comparison, 
rarely united ; and to point out the characteristics of the South 
and the North as social entities, involves so many considerations 
which must modify any general estimate, that the most candid 
view is likely to be attributed either to limited experience, or to 
inadequate discrimination. Certain fncts, however, variously at- 
tested, and so generally recognized as to illustrate the normal di- 
versities of the respective populations, may be justly adduced to 
explain the moral complexion of the present crisis and strife. 
The first and most obvious consideration is, that it is as a caste rath- 
er than a people, that the South have raised the banner and the cry 
of insurrection ; it is in the character of slaveholders that they 
wage fratricidal war, not because they have not in the past, and 
may not in the future, enjoy all the protection, scope, prosperity, 
and prestige which honest labor and free citizenship secure, but 
because they refuse to yield to the encroachment of natural laws, 
whereby political supremacy has passed from Southern to West- 
ern communities, on account of the inevitable expansion of the 
latter under the agency of free labor; that they selfishly and de- 
spairingly strive to overthrow a just government. The pretext 
for their rebellion, be it ever remembered, so far as it has any 
legislative cause, is the determination of the majority of their 
fellow-citizens to prevent the extension of slavery ; the animus of 
their hostility partakes of the same origin : — passionate resistance 
to what civilization, culture, duty, Christianity assert; it is against 
the hatred which conscious error, long suppressed jealousy, baffled 
ambition inspires, that the mere self-preserving instinct of the 
North has to contend. In this fact, from this difi'erence, we may 
discern the prevalent traits of society and character — a lawless 
class of indigent, and an arrogant class of wealthy men — the for- 
mer eager for the tray which excites their passions and occupies 
their stagnant energies, the latter solicitous to preserve that pre- 
dominance in public aff'airs, which secures the institution whereby 
they live exempt from the necessity of labor. The very antago- 
nism of such a condition breeds anger, sensitiveness and assurap- 



CHARACTER. 19 

tion. The correspondent of the London Times, wlio certainly 
takrs a most favorable view of the agreeable in Southern society, 
and compliments the manners, the appearance, and the wine he 
found in Carolina, admits that the gentlemen of the South, " if 
they meet with opposition, can scarce control their passions, and 
argument is often treated as insult," while only the evidence of 
facts would make credible the exhibition of female ire evoked by 
the present conflict. "We are justified, therefore, in the conclu- 
sion, that the temper of the better classes is unchastened and ag- 
gressive ; and every traveller can attest that the wildest district 
of Ireland, and the most vengeful race of Corsica, furnish no such 
demoralized and ferocious rabble as the crowds that glare at the 
prisoners, and threaten wayfarers from the North, at every rail- 
way station between Pensacola and Manassas. The industrious 
habits, disciplined minds, and social equality prevalent at the 
North and West, chasten the temper, and make self-control and 
self-possession the rule instead of the exception. The people there 
have no motive to hate, though many resist their truculent South- 
ern foes. Hence the long apathy, from which the cannon of 
Charleston roused them ; hence the forbearance under misrepre- 
sentations — the patience under exactions ; hence the long cher- 
ished hope of reconciliation, reconstruction, and compromise; 
hence the reluctance to extreme measures, even against spies and 
traitors. The North does not, and we trust never will, hate the 
South ; there is no personal rancor except among a few irascible 
politicians. Moral indignation, the recoil of outraged humanity, 
the calm determination to repel assaults upon national honor, 
rights and property, her citizens do, indeed, acknowledge ; but 
they have no deadly hatred to gratify, no unscrupulous revenge 
to wreak — only a solemn duty to fulfil, a sacred responsibility to 
meet. As long as an abstract question divided the two sections, 
the prime movers of this rebellion sought and found sympathy 
at the North. For fitly years the political ascendency of the 
South was maintained through afiiliation with the democratic 
party of the North ; but when the balance of power, through the 
growth of the West, was shifted ; — when so many of the South- 
ern politicians becan e peculators, conspirators, anarchists — sur- 
reptitiously diverting the money, ships and army from the repub- 
lic, and finally seizing its property, and assailing with rifles, batte- 
ries, poison, treachery, and wanton insult, its suftVage, defenders, 
representatives, flag, capitol, and citizens — then, and then only, 
the Federal authorities, in accordance with their constitutional 
obligations, and with the earnest sanction and support of the 
people whose organs they are, proclaimed the penalties of treason, 



20 THE REBELLION. 

and summoned to arms an insulted and assailed nation. Such is 
the record, whose evidences are clear, and Avbich no sophistry- 
can obscure or rhetoric confuse. It is written in the prosecution 
of Floyd, in the orders of Cobb and Thompson when members of 
the Cabinet, in the speeches of Yancey, Stephens and Pickens, 
in the protest of Twiggs' betrayed subordinates ; and confirmed 
in terms of enduring honor, in the appeals therefrom by Dix, 
Cass, Anderson, Scott, Holt and Johnson — in the inaugural and 
proclamations of the President of the United States, and the res- 
olutions of Congress — in the self-assertion of Western Virginia, 
Eastern Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mary- 
land, and the less hampered sections of other states — in the 
prompt response of our volunteer militia, the generous confidence 
of bankers, the testimony of press, pulpit, bar and exchange, and 
the cheerful sacrifices of mechanics, merchants, farmers, and 
women, through ont our free states. 

The frequent necessity of anticipating their incomes from crops, 
a conventional system of generosity too often opposed to justice, 
in fiscal matters, the habit of indulging in games of hazard, and 
the absence of those strict arrangements in regard to debt and 
credit, which obtain in communities where commerce is the prev- 
alent vocation, combined with an impulsive, and therefore com- 
paratively reckless temperament, cause the standard of integrity 
as regards pecuniary obligations to be, as a general rule, much 
lower at the South than the North. The history of several of the 
states illustrates this point; and few individuals accustomed to 
methodical and provident habits, after being won by the frank- 
ness, liberality, and genial qualities of Southerners, are not, sooner 
or later, disenchanted by finding a looseness of principle and a 
carelessness of practice in relation to money, which, associated as 
it so often is with a Hotspur quickness both to imagine and re- 
sent oftence upon the most trifiing provocation, makes the com- 
panionship, otherwise so desirable, far from satisfactory. In al- 
luding to these well-known traits and tendencies of character, we 
are far from supposing they are not redeemed by many noble im- 
pulses ; we only affirm that, in a social point of view, they are 
especially unfavorable to political efficiency ; and afford indirect 
but potent occasions for unstable and capricious phenomena in 
the civic as in the personal sphere. Nor are we disposed to claim 
for Northern character immunity from traits that mar its more 
consistent vigor. The taint of materialism induced by prosperous 
enterprise, the lack of aspiration, the acquiescence in flagrant 
national abuses, the inditference to public duty, and the insensi- 
bility to elevating motives, too great reference to thrift and too 



CHARACTER. 21 

little to patriotism, are signs of deterioration which have kept 
pace with tlio growth of our resources, and the progress of eco- 
nomical and mechanical science. The whole nation, as such, 
requires ihe discipline and the purification wliich the terrible or- 
deal of civil war may, if rightly apprehended, secure. The senti- 
ment of reverence, the true keystone of the national structure, 
which recognizes a supreme arbiter, and respects humanity, has 
lamentablv declined. Neither age nor precedents, the lessons of 
the past nor tlie claims of the future, have that respect which re- 
ligious faith and duty inculcate. We, as a people, have fully jus- 
tified De Tocqueville's theory that devotion to the immediate is 
the characteristic of republics. ]jut in the Xorth this sacrilegious 
and profane tendency has been more evident as a negative, and 
in the South as a positive element; apathy and evasion are its 
tokens here, downright scorn and violence there. Burke's appeal 
to the normal instincts of mankind as the conservative principle 
of society, and Rousseau's recurrence to the natural affections as 
tlie source of happiness and culture, are as requisite to-day in 
America as in that cliaotic era whence sprung the reign of terror 
in France. The corruption wliich had debased our government, 
inevitably led to the utter want of respect therefor, which em- 
boldened unscrupulous politicians to defy and repudiate it; but 
had there lingered in tlieir hearts respect for citizenship, rever- 
ence for the traditions, love of the founders, considerations for the 
future destiny of the republic — ■while contemning the disloyal 
and dishonest administration, they would have rememVjered the 
sacredness of citizenship, the inestimable value of constitutional 
rights; they would have recognized the people, while scorning 
their betrayers, and hesitated long to lay sacrilegious hands on 
the ark of our political salvation. Here was the great error of 
the traitors; they confounded imbecile and unprincipled rulers 
with the citizens of a common country ; and took no account, in 
their schemes, of that vast reserve of patriotism and integrity, un- 
conspicuous in ordinary times, but invoked, as by enchantment, 
into life and action, by the least violence to nationality. There 
is a mechanical spirit in the life of that portion of the country 
which has thriven so bountifully upon free labor, which accuses 
society as untrue to the aesthetic and the humane instincts that 
alone give dignity and grace to prosperity. If we meet on terms 
of greater conventional equality, we seldom elevate that advantage 
into respect for and sympathy with the individual : thrift too 
often benumbs sentiment, formal acquiescence in religious ob- 
servances takes the place of vital faith ; and domestic, social, and 
political life are hardened and narrowed by devotion to affairs, 



22 THE REBELLION. 

absorptinn in gainful schemes, or vulgar ostentation; but these 
drawbacks to the highest civilization are incident to the facility 
with which fortunes are made, and the material taste their sudden 
acquisition engenders ; they arc acknowledged evils, continually 
modified by the humanizing influences of regular industry, free 
citizenship, humane literature, and art, and the example of the 
cultivated and the conscientious ; they harden rather than de- 
grade the moral sensibilities, and lead more to the neglect than 
the violent perversion of political duties; hence they injure the 
individual more than society, and, on this account, interfere less 
witli the legitimate operation of law and order, than the despotic 
and limited passions which goad and blind their vir.tims, where 
less industry and education, and more temptation to domineer and 
speculate, mar the high functions of citizenship and national obli- 
gation. However, in the heat of passion, the superior average 
civilization of the North may be denied, our Southern fellow- 
citizens give the best proof of their consciousness and conviction 
thereof, by sending their children to be educated there, by seek- 
ing there investments for surplus revenue, by habitually resorting 
thither for recreation, information, health, and social satisfaction; 
and by sending their families among the same traduced people, as 
their best refuge and most agreeable home, even when the two 
sections of the land are opposed to each other in deadly array. 
The confidence in Northern integrity, resources, culture, and kind- 
ness, as far as social agencies are concerned, has been, and is man- 
ifested by the South in so practical a manner as to make ridicu- 
lous their intemperate abuse and ostensible distrust. "Clear 
your mind of cant," urged Dr. Johnson, in an argument : the cant 
produced by this present climax of feeling and crisis of affairs is 
unparalleldl for audacious mendacity. We hear continually that 
the South are ''fighting for homes and firesides;" and before the 
evacuation of Sumpter were told of ladies devoting the Sabbath 
to making cartridges, and gentlemen keeping batteries under a 
fervid sun, as if a foreign enemy invested the city, and hordes of 
insatiable desperadoes threatened domestic security. And what 
was the truth ? Simply that these people chose to imagine per- 
sonal enmity, revengeful ire corresponding with their seTf-excited 
fears and vindictivencss. Voluntarily they made war on the 
United States, of which they constituted an integral part; with 
no provocation to hostilities but the election of a chief magistrate 
they did not approve, they commenced a violent seizure of forts, 
arsenals, custom-houses, treasure, and ships belonging to the 
whole country ; and then threatened the capital ; and having so 
done, began to "play the injured :" calling American citizens 



CHARACTER. 23 

from every class and party, in arms to defend the country, " Lin- 
coln's men " and " Yankees ;" ignoring every bond and tie but 
" our state," as if a certain extent of soil, without freedom to vote 
at will, or utter one's national allegiance with impunity, could, in 
any legitimate sense, be a state ; one honest and sane protest 
against such an anomalous condition is as good as a thousand to 
make apparent tbe truth ; and thence and then was sent forth the 
declaration of a party to tlie movement that "Southern oppression 
is worse than Northern injustice;" while a prominent member of 
the bar, always respected for his integrity and patriotism, boldly 
assertetf that in thus acting his native state had " made a fool of 
herself," and one of her most honored daughters confessed she 
had wept with mortification and pity, after laughing immoderately 
at the comic self-delusion. And if it is objected that beneath 
these apparent absurdities lay, dark and portentous, the question 
of slavery, and that apprehension of an intended violent interfer- 
ence therewith, sanctioned by the new administration (however 
impracticable by the terras of the constitution), was tlie latent and 
overmastering inducement; then must we deny method to the mad- 
ness whereof the most gifted woman of the age, whose tenderness 
and wisdom are hallowed by her fresh grave, thus wrote :* 

"Now the question is thrown into new probabilities of solution 
by that Jine madness of the South, which is God's gift to the world 
in these latter days, in order to a ' restitution of all things,' and 
the reconstruction everywhere oF political justice and national 
right. See how it has been in Italy ! If Austria had not madly 
invaded Piedmont in 1859, France could not have fought. If 
the l*ope had not been madly obstinate in rejecting tlic reforms 
pressed on him by France, he must have been sustained as a tem- 
poral ruler. If the king of Naples had not madly refused to ac- 
cept the overtures of Piedmont toward an alliance in free govern- 
ment and Italian independence, we should have had to wait for 
Italian unity. So with the rulers of Tuscany, Modena, and the 
rest. Everybody was mad at the right moment. I thank God 
for it. '■Mais, mon cher,' said Napoleon to the Tuscan ex-grand 
duke, weeping before him as a suppliant, ^vous etiez a Solferino.'' 
That act of pure madness settled the duke's claims upon Tuscany. 
And looking yearningly to our poor Venetia (to say nothing of 
other suffering peoples beyond this peninsula), my cry nuist still 
be, ' Give, give — more madness. Lord !' 

" The Pope has been madder than everybody, and fur a much 
longer time, exactly because his case was complex and difficult, 

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



24: THE REBELLION. 

and because witli Catliolic Europe and tlic French clerical party, 
(slrengtlieiied by J\J. (juizot and the whole French dynastic oppo- 
sition — I wish them joy of their cause I) drawn up on the Holy 
Father's side, the least touch of sanity would have saved hiin, to 
the immense injury of the Italian nation. As it is, we are at the 
beginning of the end. "We see light at the end of the cavern. 
Here's a dark turning indeed about Venetia — but we won't hit our 
heads against the stalactites even there; and beyond, we get 
out into a free, great, independent Italy! May God save us to 
the end ! 

" At this point the anxiety on American affairs can take its full 
share of thought. My partiality for frenzies is not so absorbing, 
believe nie, as to exclude very painful considerations on the disso- 
lution of your great Union. But my serious fear has been, and 
is, not for the dissolution of the body but the death of the soul ; 
not of a rupture of states and civil war, but of reconciliation and 
peace at the expense of a deadly compromise of principle. Noth- 
ing will destroy the republic but what corrupts its conscience and 
disturbs its fame — for the stain upon the honor must come off 
upon the flag. If, on the other hand, the North stands- fast on the 
moral ground, no glory -will be like your glory ; your frontiers 
may diminish, but your essential greatness will increase; your 
foes may be of your own household, but your friends must be 
among all just and righteous men." 

In all civilized countries there are two antagonistic classes more 
or less defined — one valuing political institutions for their conser- 
vative, civilizing and national use, protection and inspiration ; 
and the other regarding them only as means of personal aggran- 
dizement ill the game of life ; the one class respect and love gov- 
ernment as the official expression of popular convictions — the 
delegated power on which the citizen relies for the preservation 
of law and order; tlie other class, having neither reverence nor 
Jove for any institution liunian or divine, except so favas it sub- 
serves their individual lust of power or gain, are on the perpetual 
qtii Vive for any temporary disorganization or crisis of opinion, 
whereby they can profit; in otlier words, civilized populations 
are made up of contented citizens and adventurers. With the 
growth of our country and the increase of its foreign element, 
the latter class have multiplied ; and they now furnish no small 
portion of those wlio have voluntarily taken up arms against the 
constitution and the laws, and the elected authorities of the land. 
The antecedents of the leaders in this rebellion identify them 
with the adventurers; many of them have been filibusters, others 
political schemers and innovators; and others, who have held 



CHARACTER. 25 

offices of honor and trust under the Federal Government, have 
been remarkable for advocating views and enacting parts in the 
drama of public life, which conflict with logical loyalty and civic 
honor. Even the foreign reader of American history cannot fail 
to be struck with the absohite contrast in tone of mind, extent 
of ability and integrity of sentiment, between these men and the 
original and subsequent representatives of the political life of the 
republic; the latter were statesmen, the former are demagogues; 
the one trusted to principles, the other confide in theories ; to 
the one patriotism was an absorbing instinct, to the other parti- 
sanship V' the highest virtue ; these look on the country, its re- 
sources, its welfare and its destinies through the narrow loophole 
of sectional prejudice, and those surveyed them from the exalted 
eminence of national honor; the means and methods of the 
founders of our government were candid, patient, intelligent and 
intrepid ; those of its assailants and subverters, cruel, subtle, dis- 
ingenuous and unprincipled ; self-respect and mutual forbearance 
signalized the action of the former; vulgarity, meanness, and inso- 
lence characterize the latter; the contrast of their very names 
seems to mark the antagonism ; some of them are appellations a 
farce-writer might choose for Pickwickian desperadoes. What 
ignoble names, as belonging to the recognized leaders of public 
life and opinion in the land made illustrious by Washington, 
Franklin, llamilton, Madison, Jay, Adams, Morris, Marshall, 
Webster, Clay, and Jefferson ! There is a latent significance in 
the juxta-position of the latter name with that of Davis, associ- 
ated as it is with the triumph of the ultra-democracy to which is 
attributed in the last analysis,, the degraded popular absolutism 
that now threatens the nation. In the person of that ambitious 
traitor, his rule and his professed objects, we have incarnated the 
destructive irresponsibleness of democratic usurpation. 

No one acquainted with American citizens of Southern birth, 
men of sense, refinement, integrity and patriotism, and women of 
intelligence, sensibility and nobleness — can for a moment do them 
the injustice to imagine that such men represent either their 
opinions or social standard of character : nor is it less unreason- 
able to believe that they, and such as they, are in anywise, directly 
responsible for the political iniquity and barbarous despotism 
which prevail around them ; however local pride and affection 
and. a sense of personal injury may, for the time being, enlist 
their active sympathies in behalf of neighbors, kindred and 
friends, and make it almost a social necessity to ostensibly acqui- 
esce in and maintain the views and purposes adopted in the 
name of their respective states. 
3 



26 THE REBELLION. 



V. 

NATIONALITY. 

American travellers in Italy (before the advent of Cavour, 
Victor Emanuel, and Garibaldi — that noble trio of constitutional 
king, national statesman, and popular champion — through whom 
nnitv, which begets power, and power legitimized by free govern- 
ment, were established in the peninsula), while their sympathies 
were deeply excited for this ingenious, urbane, and oppressed 
people, half despaired of their political regeneration on account of 
the local feeling and antagonism, the provincial and municipal 
prejudice and attachment, which seemed to utterly forego na- 
tional feeling, wherein so evidently consisted the welfare of Italy, 
To ,tbe native of our western republic, it seemed as pitiful as 
perverse to hear the amiable coniessa and the candid contadino, 
the effeniinate employe of duke, pope, or emperor, and even the 
shrewd artisan, talk so complacently of ^^ viio 2xiese'''' — meaning, 
thereby, the city or village that gave them birth; to witness the 
proud contempt with which the Roman flung his threadbare cloak 
over his shoulders at the mention of the Neapolitans ; to note the 
shallow pity of the latter for the more cultivated Tuscans, and 
mark the antagonistic mein of the Piedmontese officer toward 
the tradesman of Milan, indicating a mutual indifference or anti- 
pathy, and a narrow consciousness of civic dignity and privilege, 
wiiich seemed fatal to the generous and practical patriotism alone 
adequate to the emancipation of Italy. But this chiMish and 
unworthy feeling challenged pity rather than anger ; it was the 
growth of ages, born of the feudal wars of the old Italian repub- 
lic,, kept alive by traditional animosities, rival interests, and the 
sequestration whicli despotism encourages. That our own country, 
subjected, to no such heritage of demarcation, whose original 
combination of resources and sentiment won freedom and founded 
republican government on the grandest scale; where the hand of 
the Creator has written a united destiny by the most magnificent 
series of rivers and lakes in the world, connecting the heart of 
the continent with the sea, and interfusing states and territories 
by (*,onimon distribution of water and chains of mountains — that 
our own country, which had experienced the moral and pliysical 



NATIONALITY. 27 

benefits of union in war and peace, and througli years of unpre- 
cedented growtli, freedom and prosperity, should, bj" the influence 
of this same obsolete provincial and feudal bigotry, relapse into 
divided counsels, interests, and institutions, even to insurrection — 
— that we live to hear Americans talk with puerile emphasis of 
" my state," while the Italians vindicate the sentiment and success 
of nationality, is one of those miraculous transformations that 
baffle speculation, and make almost untrustworthy the evidence 
of our senses. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the super- 
ficial hold which national honor, pride, and aftection — the safe- . 
guard and the sanctions of a civilized people — have upon these 
fanatical votaries of what they call " state rights," and, at the 
same time, better indicate how often the latter are flagrant " state 
wrongs," than the abrupt and inconsequent changes of political 
faith under the pressure of this crisis. Letters are in the posses- 
sion of numerous Northern friends of some of the most respected 
and intelligent Virginians, Georgians, and Louisianians, written 
just before their respective states were declared seceded from the 
federal Union, in which the abettors of this project are denounced 
as reckless and treasonable, their purpose stigmatized as anai'chi- 
cal, and the warmest professions of attachment to and confidence in 
the constitution and Union declared. Yet a few days subsequent 
these convictions are ignored, and the obligation to " stand by 
our state" recognized, either because of property therein, the 
claims of kindred, the fear of persecution, or the prospect of 
office. Sometimes the transition has been so instantaneous and 
complete as to be comic. When Annapolis was threatened, no- 
thing could exceed the active sympathy of the female friends of 
the officers' wives; obliged to pack up and hasten oft", with their 
young families, at a few hours' warning. We know of instances 
where friends and neighbors have mingled tears and reproaches 
with the suddenly ejected household, kept vigils of love and care 
with them, and the next day passed them with a stare of cold 
inditference, because, meantime, news had arrived that their state 
had seceded ! The very persons who have invoked the federal 
arms for protection, have resisted their appearance as an invasion ; 
the same hands that have recorded utter distrust of, and well- 
founded contempt for, the honesty of the rebellious leaders, and 
declared it infamy to obey their behests, have signed papers recog- 
nizing their authority, and commending their usurpations. Such 
gross inconsistencies and rapid self-contradictions prove either a 
fatal materialism or a civic cowardice, from which it would be an 
inestimable blessing to be set free, even through the fiery ordeal 
of civil war. In fact, this political crisis and hostile demonstra- 



2S THE REBELLION. 

tion has revealed a state of society so incongruous and demoralized 
that, had it not occurred, a social revolution and local contest 
must have soon taken place at the South. It has been made 
apparent that the refined, humane, cultivated, and Christian fam- 
ilies, whose members have so won the love of the North, so 
honored and blest the sphere of their duties, whose homes are 
shrines of religious and domestic peace, and haunts of genial 
hospitality, are so greatly in the mmority as to be overshadowed 
and overawed by the irresponsible and arrogant element of the 
population. During these long years of prosperity and peace, the 
large planters have increased their estates, while the poor whites 
and the negroes have multiplied ; the sons of the land-owners, by 
the subdivisions of property, are restricted in means ; and, having 
been educated at the North and travelled in Europe, with expensive 
tastes, and despising labor, are at once proud and poor, and there- 
fore ready for military enterprise and glad of an excuse for 
fighting. Here we have the desperate and the adventurous 
material which stimulates political factions into turbulence and 
bloodshed. To resist the tide of popular fury, under the local 
circumstances of the Southern states, has been physically impos- 
sible ; so that men of sense, of principle and of patriotism, are con- 
demned to tacit acquiescence, and keep aloof, as far as practicable, 
from the strife ; and in the seclusion of their plantations, if un- 
disturbed by foragers and press-gangs, have ample time and cause 
to realize how bitter are the so-called "state rights" which de- 
prive the citizens of free speech, free votes, free passage — all that 
constitute " liberty and the pursuit of happiness," so long guaran- 
teed under the flag now trodden in the dust, its stars of promise 
superseded by the thorny palmetto, the filthy pelican, and the 
envenomed snake. 

There are, indeed, recognized conservative influences which 
invariably deepen and define national sentiment, so as to render it 
superior to the blandishments of speculative innovators and the 
temptation of economical experiments — influences so inwrought 
with the fame and the charm of one's native land, as to bind the 
heart thereto by the strong ties of a common heritage of renown, 
the memory of individual culture, and the pride of national 
achievement. Among the most endeared of these are literature 
and art ; and herein the Southern communities are far less fav- 
ored than those of the North. The written thought, when clotlied 
with beauty and power, and inspired by genius, reflecting and 
embalming the traditions, the aspect, and the character of a 
people, and the trophies of art, which perpetuate historical and 
local feme, singularly endear the country of their origin. Abroad 



NATIONALITY. 29 

we ponder the verse which renews to the mind every feature 
of our country, the chronicle that illustrates the triumphs of her 
scholars, the eloquence which celebrates her heroes, and, at home, 
we cherish the picture or the statue that vindicates her artistic 
power, as memorials of native glory. The more general culture 
and the special achievements in letters and art which have signal- 
ized the civilization of the North, have tended, in no small degree, 
to keep alive pride of country ; while the talent of the South 
has been exhibited more in the evanescent triumphs of oratory 
than in permanent and classic works. Those American authors 
and artists who have attained a European reputation, with but 
few exceptions have been of New England birth ; and the spirit 
of their creations has been eminently national. It is the same 
in the mechanic arts and in commercial enterprise, which are 
held, as vocations, in contempt by wealthy planters. The echoes 
of national celebrity, which the bards, historians, ethical and 
critical writers, shipwrights, sculptors, limners, inventors, and dis- 
coverers of America, have evoked from the old world, have been 
hailed chiefly at a distance from her cotton-fields; and thus the 
true glory of the land seems to have had but a local recognition. 
It is, indeed, among the sophistical arguments of those who per- 
sist in attributing to legislative and social all the ill-success that 
grows out of natural causes — that the North will not encourage 
the Southern mind any more than the Southern trade ; but we all 
know that genius and effective self-culture make themselves felt in 
spite of prejudice and prohibition, neither of which exists in this 
case. The theory is as unreasonable as a method of accounting 
for the dearth of literary and artistic triumphs, as is that of tariff's, 
monopolies, and local preferences, in explaining the superiority of 
New York to Charleston as a mart and port ; as if harbors ob- 
structed by sand-bars and currents, and cities exposed to annual 
pestilence, can ever equal more commodious, accessible, and salu- 
brious centres of traffic ; or, as if a great poet, masterly historian, 
gifted artist, or prevalent literary taste, could, by any external 
agency, fail of just recognition wherever found. It is to one of 
that despised race of Yankees that the South is indebted for the 
system of telegraphic communication, which, until she wantonly 
severed the ties of -commerce and comity, bore so swiftly to and 
from the distant North embassies of traffic or of love ; to another 
they owe the very machine which, by a process quicker and more 
sure than human hands, separates the seed from the fibre of the 
cotton plant, and thus indefinitely adds to its market value ; the 
shoes he wears, the book he reads, the weapon he so recklessly 
uses, the engine that propels him on railway and river, half the 
3* 



30 THE REBELLION. 

commodities and amenities of life, are contributed by the same 
derided Yankees. 

The traditions of the revolutionary struggle have been kept 
alive at the North, while they have languished at the South, by 
virtue of this greater love of, and devotion to, art and letters. It 
was the eloquence of a New England orator that made Mount 
Vernon national property ; it was the cunning hand of a New- 
York sculptor that moulded the heroic figure of Washington, that 
adorns, while it reproaches, the capital of Virginia ; it was the 
comprehensive reasoning and immortal appeal of a Northern 
statesman, that laid bare the iniquity of this very rebellion, when 
it was but a speculative germ, and proclaimed in language which 
the world knovvs by heart — the inestimable value, glorious his- 
tory, and precious heritage of the Union ; and it was a band of 
Massachusetts soldiers who, a few weeks since, on their way to 
defend it, turned aside to lay garlands on the fresh grave of 
Washington's latest biographer. 



VI. 

ALIENATION. 



The most lamentable, and to honest and generous hearts the most 
unaccountable phase of this political alienation, is the vindictive 
hatred exhibited by the Southern people toward the North. No 
fact more clearly proves the existence of an organized and assid- 
uous system of deception than this ; for there is nothing in the 
past relations — nothing in the history of the government, or in 
the diversities of life and character, to explain this unmitigated 
hostility, as a social antagonism ; it is not reciprocal, as would 
be the case if it originated in conscious wrong acted as well as 
suffered. Any intelligent Northern citizen, who has intimately as- 
sociated with ladies and gentlemen (the politicians and black- 
guards are not to be considered) of Southern birth, will not hesi- 
tate to bear witness to the utter absence of ill-will, inhospitality, 
or prejudice ; on the contrary, average experience indicates pre- 
cisely the reverse — a decided partiality for, and interest in, South- 
ern society, as such. For how many years was Saratoga the 
pleasant rendezvous where old friendships were renewed annually 



ALIENATION^. 31 

between the best families from the extreme sections of the land ; 
bow constantly have Northern invalids found homes at the South 
endeared by the warmest ties of kindness, respect and affection ; 
and Southern friends gladly resumed these relations on their sum- 
mer excursions to the sea-side and mountains of the North, If 
the private correspondence of the most cultivated families in both 
sections, were laid open to our inspection, it would reveal years 
of the most frank and sympathetic intercourse. The very differ- 
ences of character have promoted this affinit3\ There is some- 
thing peculiarly attractive in the manners, something freshly 
suggestive in the conversation of Southern women to Northern 
men ; and scarcely a large plantation, or a favorite watering-place 
in the land, has not witnessed the most genial intercourse, often 
resulting in permanent relations. The violent repulsion now ex- 
perienced, cannot, therefore, be accounted for as a social fact, by 
exclusive political causes ; these alienate communities, bar pro- 
miscuous association, check and chill awhile the interchange of 
hospitality ; but they do not blight, at a glance, the love of years, 
extinguish friendships based on mutual confidence, fill the tested 
sympathy of familiar comrades with the poison of distrust, and 
turn the tender sympathies of woman into fiendish hatred. What 
then are the latent causes of this unchristian, unphilosophical, un- 
American social enmity ? We recognize three prominent sources 
thereof — mendacious politicians, an irresponsible press, and ma- 
lignant philanthropists ; and we confidently assert, that neither 
has any legitimate claim to represent the social sentiment, or to 
assume the political expression of the national mind ; and the 
consciousness of this has led the first class to establish and main- 
tain every possible obstacle whereby a mutual understanding 
could be attained, and the truth be revealed to their deluded vic- 
tims. Not one man in a thousand believed such an attempt 
practicable in this country, where freedom of communication has 
been so long a national habit ; but espionage, proscription and 
violence have succeeded on American soil quite as well as under 
Austrian tyranny; and when the history of this rebellion shall 
be written, its most remarkable feature will be the number, enor- 
mity, and continuance of popular delusions, by means of which 
the leaders have kept up the strife and kept out the truth ; that 
a day of reckoning will come, and that the betrayal of whole 
communities, for personal objects, will react fatally upon its au- 
thors, is the inference from all historical precedent as well as re- 
tributive law. But with all their sagacity and unscrupulous force, 
it would have been impossible thus to deceive the multitude, had 
not antecedent influences prepared the way for the blind adop- 



32 THE REBELLION. 

tion of these fanatical convictions. As the previous social experi- 
ence of those so grossly self-deluded gives no warrant therefor, we 
must seek the cause in more public agencies, and first among these 
is the press. We have often imagined vs'hat would be our feelings 
if, unenlightened by personal contact with Northern society, and 
dwelling upon an isolated Southern plantation, we should read 
some of the New-York journals, such as they were during the 
last two years and before ; — read the impudent defiance, the gross 
invective, the reckless speculations, and the inhuman suggestions, 
whereby, under the influence of party zeal, and personal arrogance 
and ignorance, it was sought to widen and deepen the breach be- 
tween the North and South — not as members of a united body 
politic, but as communities of men, women and citizens. To us, 
familiar with the insulting tone and unprincipled aggression 
of a portion of the press — its want of respect for every sentiment 
dear to humanity, and almost every individual honored among 
men ; — its want of convictions, its mercenary inspiration, its 
corps of adventurers, who, without stake in the fortunes, arro- 
gantly discuss the destinies of the republic— to us, who know pre- 
cisely how to estimate the value of opinions thus put forth, and 
the responsibility thus assumed, it is easy to read and smile as at 
a farce or a mountebank ; but at a distance from such means of 
attaining a correct view — isolated from any other representation 
of the spirit and opinions of a distant community — we find no 
difficulty in imagining that these graceless outpourings of private 
arrogance and radicalism, would seem to us the voice of popular 
sentiment — the positive evidence of heartless prejudice or inveter- 
ate animosity. And under such an impression, the better and 
true convictions gained from private experience and logical inves- 
tigation might fade away, and thus leave free scope for the false- 
hoods of political insurrectionists to take root. 

The term " malignant philanthropists," by which we designate 
a small but unscrupulous class of men, who, in the ostensible pro- 
motion of an object which, in the abstract, is right, advocate 
means practically wrong, would seem an unauthorized use of 
language, an adjective and a noun that contradict each other, 
and, therefore, mean nothing. But the epithet was first used, we 
believe, by a discriminating clergyman, and is literally correct ; 
for the persons whoso character it defines, unite combativeness 
and dcstructiveness to professed benevolence, and present the 
anomaly of ostensibly seeking the good of humanity while violat- 
ing her primal instincts. It is an abuse of language to call this 
class of active opponents to slavery, abolitionists, for every one 
who believes that institution ought to be abolished, comes under 



ALIENATION. 33 

this appellation ; while the class referred to are properly insurrec- 
tionists, and advocate a course which involves tlie life of thou- 
sands of innocent human beings — their fellow-citizens as well as a 
larger number of their fellow-creatures whose champions they 
perversely declare themselves. Though limited and uninfluential, 
without political prestige or power, and looked upon with horror 
by every rational lover of freedom, they have had full range in 
the expression of their opinions; and of this circumstance the po- 
litical zealots of the South have availed themselves to propagate 
the wanton falsehood that a majority of the Northern people not 
only approve their wicked purpose, but originally intended to re- 
alize it through military conquest. This monstrous fiction, incred- 
ible according to the common sense of mankind, and contradicted 
by the history of legislation, and the testimony of all impartial 
■witnesses ; known, in fact, to be an invention by all experienced 
and observant persons, is nevertheless the great expedient of the 
political tyrants who have outraged the constitution, the laws, 
and the rights of the country. Should a novice doubt the effi- 
cacy of such a method, let him read the story of the few abortive 
negro insurrections that have occurred on this continent; and the 
wild terror and extravagant precautions even the faintest rumor 
thereof have occasioned in whole states, will convince him that in 
the hands of sagacious adventurers there is no conceivable means 
of exciting fear, and through fear hate and desperate violence, 
than the constantly repeated assertion that citizens of the same 
country are leagued with these infamous advocates of a servile in- 
surrection bv constitutional political organization. This reiterated 
fiction has acted upon tlie ignorant and passionate masses of the 
South, as the fanaticism of the first French revolution upon the 
mob and their leaders — rousing the instinct of self-preservation 
into the frenzy of vindictive usurpation, alienation, and revenge. 
Those incapable of apprehending the subtle arguments of polit- 
ical theorists, and even of reading the diatribes of unprincipled 
journalism, are roused by this alarm into ferocity and blind ag- 
gression. But the malignant philanthropist is as much distrusted 
and disliked bv men of humanity and sense at the North, as his 
incendiary speech and writings are feared and anathematized at 
the South. He is regarded as one who impiously strives to main- 
tain an unchristian standard of benevolence, by aggressive alle- 
giance to the letter, and entire unfaithfulness to the spirit of the 
benign founder of our religion ; as substituting an abstract and 
speculative for a practical and soulful interest in mankind. There 
is nothing in his personal character and influence that bespeaks 
the tenderness for human needs, the respect for human sympa- 



64: THE EEBELLION^. 

tliics, which vociferous assaults on a special wrong, and exclusive 
appeals for a special class, would suggest. Not to him do his 
neighbors instinctively turn for kindly offices and generous aid ; 
intolerant, self-complacent, pertinacious, unmindfid of the feelings 
of those around and defiant toward the proprieties of time, place, 
and circumstances, he lacks the " heart of courtesy," often the 
domestic graces, always the divine charity whereof is made the 
character of the Christian gentlemen : and inevitably sugii;ests to 
the experienced observer, the idea of a champion inspired to a 
reckless crusade, by the consciousness of deficiency in that love 
and nobleness that finds scope in daily life and familiar relations. 
Can a better illustration of the real state of the case be imagined 
than that afforded by a frank and free conversation between an 
intelligent slaveholder and an equally intelligent republican of the 
North, when each, through long acquaintance, had reason to know 
the honesty and magnanimity of the other ? Such a conversation, 
tempered by all the pleasant influences of a sumptuous repast and 
an agreeable company, it was our fortune to hear. " How many 
years have you known me?" asked the republican of his Southern 
friend." "About a quarter of a century," was the reply. " Do 
you then believe me capable of uniting myself to a party having 
for its object the initiation of a servile war — a slave insurrection, 
with all its atrocious horrors, involving alike men, women, and 
children — my fellow-citizens, many of whom are personally en- 
deared by years of affectionate intercourse ?" His auditor indig- 
nantly disclaimed the idea. " Your sense of justice then discards 
this falsehood, so industriously propagated at the South as identi- 
fied with the political organization to which I belong?" "It 
does." " Would you, if l)y a mere effort of volition, it was in 
your power, convert your slave property into a satisfactory invest- 
ment of another description V " With infinite pleasure." "Why ?" 
" Because I consider it desirable." " You regard slavery then as 
an evil ?" " Yes, but a necessary, an inevitable evil." " Do you, 
with such convictions, think it justifiable in you as an American 
and a Christian, to wish to promote its extension ?" " No." 
" This is the only object or doctrine of the Republican party 
which gives offence to the South ; it is an object and a doctrine 
the majority of the people of the United States cherish and advo- 
cate ; and they have constitutionally elected a president pledged 
to uphold and execute their views; it is the first time for years 
that the South have been conquered at the ballot-box ; and now, 
forsooth, with all their boasted chivalry, they passionately throw 
up the game, repudiate their allegiance, and attempt to break up 
the government." " But you must remember," replied the South- 



ALIENATION. 35 

erner, "that with us tlje question at issue involves our propertv, 
our lives, and those of our families, while with you it is but a po- 
litical abstraction ; the attempt to prohibit slavery extension is 
the entering wedge that, in the end will subvert our 'peculiar in- 
stitution,' and, therefore, we resist it to the death. I know the 
temper and principles of the better class of Northern society so 
well, that I believe, so far from sharing the violent and fatal 
schemes of the radical abolitionists, many would come to our aid, 
if the destruction of the whites was seriously attempted ; I have 
every reason to deny the existence of any hostile sentiment, or 
bitter enmity toward us; I acknowledge these slanders are tlie 
invention of political aspirants ; at the same time, our interests, 
our pride, our local attachments, and our self-preserving instincts, 
compel recourse to secession with all its unhappy consequences."' 
Such was the admission, in the confidence of friendship, of a 
slaveholder ; and when he was asked why he did not correct the 
delusions so rife in his own state and neighborhood, as to the true 
aim of the successful party, and the real sentiment of the Northern 
community toward the Southern, as such, he candidly acknowl- 
edged that he could not risk the probable consequences of such 
ingenious advocacy of truth — tar and feathers, a prison or a halter. 
We have spoken of the provincialism which, in parts of the South- 
ern states, blinds the people to the dignity and value of national 
relations, and of the theoretical politics thence engendered — of 
the jealousy of their " peculiar institution," which creates an ex- 
travagant susceptibility both of private opinion and possible legis- 
lation in the free states regarding it, and of the opportunity thus 
afforded to unprincipled adventurers to sophisticate the thought 
and exasperate the feeling of the public ; to these causes of disaf- 
fection may be added one less worthy, but equally true — envy of 
the more rapid growth and greater prosperity of the North; the 
irritation thus awakened vents itself in language which cannot be 
mistaken. The commercial prominence and social luxury wit- 
nessed in the large cities of the North, is a spectacle which affects 
the less magnanimous of our Southern fellow-citizens, as did the 
sight of Mordecai Haman of old. Not only are the unreason- 
ing cavillers who dwell beside the canebrakes, and in the stag- 
nant summer marts, thus affected, but in Maryland, as the most 
northern of the slave states, whose commercial port admits of all 
the requisite facilities for extensive and regular trade — certain 
capitalists have adopted the belief in, and pressed to the most dire 
extremity, the purpose of secession, in order, as they fondly 
imagine, to render Baltimore all that New York now is, by di- 
verting thither the depots, shipping, and centre of exchange for 



36 THE KEBELLION. 

the staples of the South, while the kindred innovators of Virginia 
flatter tlieniselves that, under this new order of things, their state 
will become the manufacturing region that has made New Eng- 
land rich and industrious. In their selfish eagerness to realize 
these projects, they ignore the fact that they are wholly experi- 
mental ; that, however unequally divided, the extraordinary pros- 
perity of the United States has been derived from its political 
unity; and that, with the possibility of local advantage by a sev- 
erance of the Union, there is a certainty of greater decadence 
throughout the states ; while the vast protection and encourage- 
ment incident to our great country will be lost to its unsustained 
and rival fragments. One of the best writers and most honorable 
patriots Maryland boasts,* has demonstrated that it is a fatal 
error, as far as her industrial interests are concerned, to withdraw 
from the Union under any circumstances ; that political economy 
coalesces with national honor to appeal from a course at once 
disloyal and suicidal; and so far is the municipal integrity of 
Baltimore from being sound, that before the present mania devel- 
oped into treasonable violence, it was notorious that the com- 
munity were deprived of their political rights by a permanent 
mobocracy. One of the leading lawyers of that city, to iHustrate 
this anomalous and fearful condition, informed us, that having 
gained a suit involving a large amount of real estate, his client 
was unable to obtain possession, because the premises had been 
seized and occupied by one of those lawless bands in the interest 
of the defeated party. Elsewhere, in the country, he added, re- 
dress might easily be obtained by process of ejectment for tres- 
pass ; " but if I had sent a sheriff's posse to drive away the in- 
truders, I should have exposed my invalid wife and young children 
to the horrors of a vengeful mob, on the very next occasion of 
popular tumult." And yet, whei-e freemen could not deposit their 
ballots from fear of violence, and the local authorities had proved 
inadequate to save from slaughter those who sought a peaceable 
passage through their cit}', where the property of a large corpora- 
tion was ruthlessly destroyed in defiance of law, the presence of 
the national militia, which, for the first time for years, restrained 
these ruffians, to the delight of honest and order-loving citizens, 
was met by "curses not loud but deep" against this necessary pro- 
tection, as a violation of state rights! No sober and huinane ob- 
server of phenomena like these, coupled with the exhibition of a 
vindictive sj)irit, for which no motive, at all proportioned to its 
vehemence, is apparent, can resist the conclusion that there is 

* lion. Johu P. Kennedy. 



FOREIGN CRITICISM. 37 

social as well as individual insanity. History explains, and huinan 
nature accounts for the inveterate resentment between Goth and 
Roman, Guelph and Ghibbeline, Frencli and English, Austrian 
and Italian, but vainly will the historian of modern civilization, 
though as indefatigable in research and ingenious in inference as 
Buckle, seek for any more plausible theory of this local animosity 
than an epidemic madness. There remains another cause appli- 
cable to tlie border, cotton, and free states, that accounts for the 
bitterness and the prevalence of disunion schemes — a cause more 
disgraceful and discouraging to the lovers of free constitutional 
government than either wild theories of local aggrandizement or 
fears in regard to direct interference with slavery, and that is po- 
litical selfishness and disloyalty. The very theory of popular gov- 
ernment presupposes that the majority shall legitimately rule and 
the minority cheerfully submit; heretofore, however fierce and 
strong party feeling has risen, the terms and the rights of this 
solemn compact have been respected; now violence and treason 
are openly advocated and practised by the defeated party, or 
rather by the unprincipled members thereof; and the people are 
driven by the instinct of self-preservation, and the clear dictates 
of patriotic duty, to meet the fearful ordeal of civil war. 



VII. 

FOREIGN CRITICISM. 

In view of these patent facts, the disingenuous tone of the 
English press on American affairs is, to say the least, discredit- 
able to its candor and manliness. That the London Times, 
which has long ceased to be the expositor of the popular senti- 
ment of Great Britain, and become the advocate of her conjectu- 
ral interests— should studiously misstate the issue and the exigency, 
is not surprising ; that the remorseless organ of Toryism, fitly 
called "Old Ebony" — from the density and darkness of its 
political perversity, should affect to consider the struggle as a 
necessary result of democratic institutions, and involving no more 
important consequence than an auspicious separation of states, 
4 



38 THE KEBELLION. 

which originally made the grand mistake of abjuring British 
colonial rule, is consistent with the tactics and temper of a peri- 
odical whose literary freedom and brilliancy contrast so unfor- 
tunately with the conventional restraint and arbitrariness of its 
political creed; and tliat a flippant medium for spite and inhu- 
manity like the Saturday Hevinv, should sneer at the claims and 
dogmatize over the prospects of a nation whose trials and ten- 
dencies it lacks both the soul and the intellect to comprehend, 
are freaks of popular journalism which are to be expected by all 
who are cognizant of the methods and the motives of those who 
control this trenchant and truculent sheet. But the case is dif- 
ferent when we find the subject discussed, not in the same antag- 
onistic temper, indeed, nor with like indifference to the feelings 
and the fate of a kindred people, but with the same indications 
of a foregone conclusion and wilful repudiation of facts, by pro- 
fessedly liberal and independent organs, such as the National 
Revietv, which, arguing that the North would flourish better apart, 
and be free of the taint and the perplexity of the Slavery ques- 
tion, expresses wonder that the most civilized and powerful 
states of the Union do not cheerfully and peacefully allow the 
withdrawal of those disaft'ected and rebellious ; and then goes on 
to show that, while right is unquestionably on the side of the 
government, reason is against a war for its maintenance — the in- 
ference being that the United States initiated a bloody conflict, 
simply to prevent a voluntary and legitimate secession of certain 
discontented members of the republic ; whereas the present war 
was made inevitable by an organized attempt to overthrow the 
institutions, appropriate the resources, destroy the liberties and 
seize the capital of the nation ; it was a moral and physical 
necessity to fight — even if it were known that the scheme of the 
disunioiiists could and would be realized — for otherwise, the 
property, the lives, and the freedom of American citizens had no 
earthly guarantee, safeguard or sanction. In ignoring this palpa- 
ble truth, a portion of the press of England has stultified all its 
speculative logic; and it is a remarkable evidence of the honesty 
of the people — that the most stringent protests against this injus- 
tice have come from a journal and man that represent the manu- 
facturing interests, which were most compromised by the war; 
Mr. ]>rigl)t and the Manchester Guardian herein rise far above the 
material level of the London Times ; and the most just and gen- 
erous interpretation of the crisis in Europe, instead of emanating 
from those who are nearest us in blood and institutions, has 
found scope in the eloquent appeal of a French publicist, in the 
intelligent sympathy of German and the authentic statements of 



FOREIGN CKITICI8M. 39 

Itftlian writers. Gasparin, in Paris, the Rlvista Contemporanea and 
V Opinione oi Turin, better understand and more nobly advocate 
our cause ; and D'Azeglio, in opposing the schemes of dema- 
gogues who seek to nip in the bud the expanding nationality of 
the Italian states, by subverting the constitutional kingdom under 
which it has germinated and attained vigor — cites the conduct 
of the Southern states of America: Uassolutismo della democra- 
zia e cold arrivuto alle sue ultime consef/uenze ed ha sjMventato il 
niondo coll esempio diiino stato Christiana che proclama di diritto 
divino la schiavitk* The greatest living English authority in 
economical and political science, attests, in equally emphatic 
terms the same truth. In a discussion on the American crisis by 
the Political Economy Society of Paris, John Stuart Mill thus 
expressed his deliberate convictions: 

" The question between the North and South of the American 
Union is a question of passion and not of economical interest or 
of political interest rightly understood, whatever may be the mo- 
tive urged on either side. What is now passing there has taken 
place many a time before in Europe in circumstances of similar 
gravity. The Southern states are mastered by a passion which 
blinds them and prevents them from weighing their true interests 
and the dangers which threaten them. Thei/ are in a frame of 
mind which is the result of slave)')/. These men, accustomed to 
exercise a daily despotic power over their fellows^ cannot bear con- 
trol, criticism or resistance. They d^'aiv a blind confidence from 
their heated and unruly tempers, and they so exaggerate their 
strength as really to imagine (hat they can bring the North to 
terms. Such is always the effect of the exercise of absolute potver 
over one^ s fellow man. The passion which inspires the North is 
born of nobler and worthier sentiments. They wish to preserve 
to the republic the prestige which it has enjoyed up to the pres- 
ent time, and they think that the maintenance of political bonds 
with the Southern states is necessary for the preservation of this 
prestige. It is on patriotism that they rely to effect this object." 

The same want of candor is shown in disregarding the geograph- 
ical facts of the crisis, and the absolute obligations of the na- 
tional government toward the South. To read the articles of 
English writers, and listen to the conversation of treacherous op- 
ponents of the war at home, one would imagine that the United 
States were divided into two congruous and isolated parties, the 
one having freely declared for disunion, and the other selfishly 
opposing their wishes. So contrary to the truth is this, that 

* QueaUoni JTrgenti ; Pmsieri di Massimo D'Azeglio: Firenze, 1S61. 



40 THE KEBKLLION. 

■while the bayonet and proscription have forced the alienated 
states into ostensible concurrence, large sections of Virginia, Ten- 
nessee, Georgia, Louisiana and North Carolina, temporarily main- 
tained tlieir protest against the illegal usurpation, sometimes ac- 
tually organizing a separate government, and claiming the pro- 
tection of the national authority ; while Kentucky bravely strives, 
and Missouri still nobly struggles to attain, uninvaded, their nor- 
mal integrity as constituent parts of the Union. Moreover, this 
sequestration from the tyranny of treasonable faction exists to an 
indetinite degree throughout the so-called Confederacy; some- 
times exhibiting itself in voluntary exile, often in banishment, and 
still more frequently in the unexpressed but determined loyaltj'^ 
of individuals, who purchase immunity from confiscation and mur- 
der by silence. Hereafter it will be recorded as one of the most 
glaring anomalies of Saxon civilization, that men, on both sides 
of the Atlantic, born and bred under constitutional freedom, and 
professing allegiance to the principles of civil liberty, for which 
llampden. Vane, Korner and Masrin, La Fayette and Tell, Kos- 
ciusco and Marco Bozzaris, Washington, Kossuth and Garibaldi, 
fought, pleaded or died — men of social position and respecta- 
bility, have been found in the nineteenth centurj', who refused to 
see, in the self-defence of a nation, within whose bosom were 
openly violated these sacred principles, the performance of a sol- 
emn duty ti> humanity and to nationality — the evasion of which 
would have condemned her people to eternal obloquy. The con- 
quest of the inhabitants of the border states of America by the 
slaveoerac}', would rank in history as a more shameful wrong than 
the subjugation of Greece by the Turks, the dismemberment of 
Poland, or the failure of Italian regeneration, because in these 
cases the infamous work was or would have been achieved by an 
alien race and a foreign government, whereas, in our republic, it 
could be attributed only to the unfaithfulness or pusillanimity of the 
delegated powers of the nation itself — to the indifterence or inad- 
equacy of the free states and the Federal authorit}'. Aptly in 
such a catastrophe, might be applied to the majestic bird that is 
the symbol of the republic, the beautiful simile, then no poetic 
fiction, but a tragic reality — which describes the agonies of the 
dying eagle as intensified by the sight of the feathers from his 
own plumage, that winged the fatal arrow. 

Not only is attachment for, and loyalty to the Union an actual 
aiitl vital sentiment, however crushed and shrouded in the disaf- 
fected states, demanding the efficient countenance of the central 
government, but the very institution in whose behalf such mon- 
strous sacrifices of justice and dignity are impudently claimed, 



FOREIGN CRITICISM. 41 

does not exist in whole counties thereof, and is even secretly de- 
tested, where it is legally maintained. On merely economical 
grounds it is a transition element in more than one of the states 
where it lingers rather than flourishes. Nor are the instances rare of 
individual remorse, disinterested renunciation or latent discontent 
— pointing to its ultimate overthrow. As we write, a daily jour- 
nal records the following illustration of the manner in which the 
better sympathies of our nature sometimes break forth, despite 
the pleadings of interest and the insensibility of habit : 

" It was not a hundred miles from where the rebel army is now 
encamped, that I once went to visit an old Virginia friend. We 
had known each other in boyhood. He had married, and settled 
down on a farm well stocked with negroes. He then invited me 
to visit him, not without mentioning that he had heard of my 
un-Virginian heresies on the slavery question ; but he wrote, " that 
subject we can sink in the river Styx." I went, and found him 
pleasantly environed and happy. Old times were talked of. In 
the evening, when we sat talking of the old school scenes, his 
beautiful bride sitting near, slavery not yet distantly alluded to, 
nor in all our thoughts, a groan was heard outside the door, and 
the exclamation : " O, my God !" The husband started — the 
young wife was out of the door in an instant. There -was a noise, 
a moaning voice replying to an eager, quick one; what they said 
was undistinguishable. Presently the door of the parlor was 
burst open, disclosing in the hall, sitting on the floor, with her 
head on a chair, and sobbing violently, a light mulatto woman. 
The young wife of my friend stood before us, pale as a sheet, and 
deeply stirred. Scarcely, for her tremendous emotion, could she 
inform us of the trouble, which was, that the husband of Fanny, 
(the mulatto girl) had been sold South, and been taken oft' that 
day without even being allowed to come over to this neighboring 
estate to see his wife. But never, never can I forget the emotion 
and the voice with which my friend's young wife uttered her 
whole heart. She held up the whole system as an accursed, God- 
defying system ; if by lifting her finger, she could set every slave 
in America free, that moment she would do it, and there would 
be no more white throats cut than ought to be. In vain the hus- 
band reminded her that they were not alone. Erect as a sun- 
beam, full of electric wrath, this Pythoness stood before me, and 
warned me that I could never hate slavery too much. And so 
she went on, with an eloquence that Phillips would envy, until the 
pallor was overborne by a suffusion, and the flush came with a 
rain of tears, and she went to kneel with the poor broken heart 

in the hall. The husband closed the door on the scene ; but you 
4* •' 



42 THE REBELLION. 

may jncls^c that we did not ' sink that subject in the river Styx' 
that nic:iit." 

Equally fallacious is the theory which pretends to discover in 
these events the indications of radical evanescence in republican 
institutions, these have been invariably recognized by intelligent 
advocates; as based upon popular education, in the widest sense 
of that term ; and this condition has oidy been practically ful- 
filled in the Eastern and Western states, where an alacrity and 
unanimity, as well as intelligence, absolutely without precedent, 
have been exhibited in the recent manifestation of patriotism. The 
apparent lapse of this conservative instinct confirms the stability 
of free institutions, inasmuch as, under no other form of govern- 
ment, could the abuses of political power have coexisted with 
national life. Our people so wisely governed themselves, had 
been so adequately educated in the social virtues, as to be, in a 
great measure, independent of bad rulers ; the mischief they 
were able to inflict was casual, not vital ; public order survived 
oflScial dishonesty ; law harmonized the community, despite its 
violation by their representatives ; chaos came not, as in France, 
when the integrity of government was violated ; the machinery 
continued to work, notwithstanding the ship of state drifted far 
out of her course through faithless pilotage. All history shows 
that nations, subject to despotism, decay or flourish according to 
the character of kings and ministers; but self-reliant, self-enlight- 
ened citizenship, counteracts the worst evils of ignorant, bigoted, 
and cruel nionarchs ; witness the annals of Spain and England, 
and their condition to-da}-. The essential principles of republi- 
can government, public education and equal rights, were repudia- 
ted by that portion of the United States where slavery exists ; 
its social consequences are incompatible with the political theory 
of our institutions ; and therefore it is as illogical as it is disingen- 
uous, to ascribe the failure of the great experiment there to intrin- 
sic defect. It was not through insensibility to this anomalous 
element that the founders of the republic permitted its continu- 
ance. They believed, and with reason, that it was a temporary 
obstacle ; it had already died out in many states, and, according 
to the existent signs of the times, was destined to gradually dis- 
appear by a moral, economical, and geographical necessity. The 
debates of that peerless convention of patriotic statesmen who 
formed the Constitution, the current opinion of the day, the tes- 
timony of early travellers in America, tlie tendencies and spirit 
of the age, all justify this inference. No stronger protest against 
the system, or more firm conviction of its limited duration, are 
to be found, than among the letters and speeches of the leaders 



FOREIGN CKITICISM. 43 

of public opinion — the representative men of that very state 
whose soil now reeks with fraternal blood shed in civil war, osten- 
sibly inaugurated for the defence of an institution then but toler- 
ated as a casual necessity — never defended as a permanent or 
desirable social fact. The invention of the cotton-gin, and the 
new and vast mercantile value of that staple, renewed and enlar- 
ged the life of a then decrepit element in the robust body politic ; 
interest prolonged and intensified what humanity and social sci- 
ence recognized as a disease ; the treatment of which thenceforth 
became the most perplexing problem ever awarded to Christian 
patriotism — a nucleus for fanatics and demagogues, and a peren- 
nial source of mortification and anxiety to honorable citizens. 
To infer from the perversions of republican principles incident to 
this anomalous element their impracticable triumph, is as irra- 
tional as to deny all laws of health, because of the revelations of 
morbid anatomy. The industrial development, the humane fel- 
lowship, the equalized prosperity, and the greater degree of man- 
hood and womanhood, of social progress and comfort, and indi- 
vidual scope and happiness, which are the legitimate results of 
free institutions, have been fully realized on this continent, where 
those institutions have truly existed ; the exceptions are local, and 
no candid or generous mind fails to acknowledge that the cause 
thereof is independent of, and antagonistic to, the essentials of 
republican government. 

The frequency of elections, the unrestricted suflfrage, and the 
distribution of offices as a rewaid for partisan fidelity; the tenure 
and possible renewal of the presidential term, and the limited 
power of the executive, are features of American institutions, the 
practical evil of which has been sadly demonstrated ; but each and 
all of these imperfections were anticipated by the most enlight- 
ened and comprehensive men who formed, discussed, and adopted 
the constitution ; experience has fully justified their wisdom ; the 
writings of Washington, Hamilton, Jay, King, Madison, Gouverneur 
Morris, Marshall, and others of kindred views, are prophetic of 
the very abuses which have gradually rendered the worst features 
of the present crisis not only possible but inevitable. Be it re- 
membered, however, that they are all susceptible of reform, and 
if any ordeal can induce the requisite amendments, it is that 
through which the nation is now passing. Three other consider- 
ations suggest themselves as explanatory of the difficulties and 
dangers incident but not essential to our republican form of 
government. The first is, the great extension of the territory of 
the United States, the second, an immense and continuous foreign 
immigration, and the third, the situation of the National Capital ; 



44 THE KEBELLION. 

each of which is associated with the secondary causes that have 
promoted the present disaffection and favored the outbreak of 
civil war. Had the rapid enlargement of the original bounds of 
the United States of America been foreseen, the constitution 
would have contained provisions adapted to the exigency ; and 
the fathers of the republic, could they have imagined the influx of 
such a multitude of ignorant and impoverished Europeans, would 
have made the elective privilege subject to certain desirable con- 
ditions of education, property, and residence. The isolation of 
the capital, and its almost exclusive occupancy by representatives 
and employes of the government, by depriving the political nu- 
cleus of the land of those direct and salubrious influences gener- 
ated by its social centres, has tended to separate civic from national 
life — to concentrate the agents while banishing the subjects of 
legislation, and thus abandoning, as it were, the former to all the 
pernicious influences of mere political motives. It has been re- 
peatedly suggested that if Washington was the place of residence, 
even during a part of the year, of the most eminent professional 
and commercial citizens, from all parts of the country, their pres- 
ence would modify, encourage, and sustain the administration, 
and give vigor and wisdom to national councils and authority. 
The social efficiency of London and Paris in giving character and 
significance to government, by immediately operating on public 
opinion, and the exercise of political functions, is exhibited in the 
history of England and France. The interference of politicians in 
administrative duties, and the remote action of popular sentiment 
upon those actuallj'^ engaged in national affairs, are obvious rea- 
sons for the temporary success of treasonable intrigue and official 
dishonesty. The measure discussed at the club while pending in 
Parliament, and the crisis that raises a storm in the Chamber of 
Deputies, which instantly wakes an echo in the cafe and salon, 
cannot retain, if they originally possessed, an exclusively political 
character, for the sentiment and the thought of the citizen blend 
with and often shape those of the executive and the councillors 
of the nation. The people watch over their representatives, detect 
the latent purpose, enlighten the blind allegiance and inspire the 
loyal ruler or lawgiver, so that it is at once more difiicult to 
betray and more easy to reform the tendencies of the hour. The 
history of the last few months has taught Americans the moral 
necessity of fusing their political and social interests, by mak- 
ing the capital of the nation the nucleus of its genius, its patriotism 
and its eminent society, whereby a wise and loyal public sentiment 
is engendered in the very heart of the republic. 



CONCLUSION. 45 



VIII. 

CONCLUSION, 

Those who delight to trace Providential issues in history, will 
find ample scope therefor in the recent events among us. An 
extraordinary combination and succession of incidents make mar- 
vellously clear the record of the government as the legitimate 
exponent of the popular will and the national character. Never 
was a civil war initiated with a more distinct revelation of the 
right and the wrong, the just and the unjust, the honorable and 
the shameless principles therein involved. It was to prevent the 
constitutionally empowered authorities of the land from supplying 
food to a starving garrison, that the first rebellious shots were 
fired and the federal government assailed ; the man chosen to lead 
and represent the treasonable movement was the successful advo- 
cate of the repudiation of state debts, whereby fiscal dishonor was 
first permanently attached to the republic ; the most intellectual 
of the traitor chiefs had, a few weeks before, solemnly declared 
that there existed no justification for rebellion against the "most 
beneficent government the world ever saw ;" the first martyrs in 
the strife were struck down by a mob while peacefully marching 
to the defence of the capital, to which duty they had been sum- 
moned by executive proclamation; the destruction of the bridges 
between Baltimore and Washington, Avhich seemed to place the 
latter city in such imminent peril, doubtless snatched from destruc- 
tion the tiower of the New York volunteers, whose presence after- 
ward saved it from attack ; the wanton insults to the national 
flag roused to its defence thousands whom no motive of self-intei'est, 
and no political dogma could have won to arms for the cause of 
the Union ; and the mendacious and vulgar tone, the transparent 
sophistries and the inflated bombast of the dispatches, proclama- 
tions, speeches, messages, and commentaries, which have emanated 
from those who assume to represent the Southern communities, 
carry in themselves the proofs of duplicity and usurpation; while 
the calm and conscientious tenor of the President's appeal to the 
country, of those of the loyal governors to their respective states, 
of the patriotic addresses and letters of such men as Holt and 



46 THE REBELLION. 

Jolinson, Ethridge and Clemens, Everett, Kennedy and Motley, 
will prove historical illustrations of the national integrity. 

The expectation of a reverse at the commencement of hostilities 
was the prediction of intelligent, and we had almost said, the 
hope of patriotic men devoted to the Union ; they believed, and 
suLseqnent events have confirmed the opinion, that nothing but 
defeat, would thorouglily arouse, and firmly concentrate the public 
sentiment and resistance. Therefore it is, that in attempting to 
trace the hand of Providence in these momentous events, we in- 
clude even the sad and shameful termination of that fatal Sabbath 
struggle at and around Manassas, Vain before were pleadings 
and protests to break the subtle web of political chicanery and 
encroachment; vain the demonstrations of military science; and 
vain the warnings of prudent and conscientious observers, to stay 
the tide of popular but ignorant zeal that precipitated action, and 
challenged the very laws of nature. By no path but the valley of 
humiliation could the national will be guided to self-knowledge, 
the national rulers be awakened to the vastness and the immi- 
nence of their duty, and the national heart be solemnized into the 
earnestness of self-sacrifice and intrepid purpose. Nor is this all. 
Every successive phase and process of the war is clearing avenues 
to truth, and purifying the whole atmosphere of the country from 
the stagnant vapors of corruption that had so long settled over 
and poisoned its vital breath. For years, thoughtful citizens had 
foretold the necessity of some convulsion, the advent of some 
calamity, as the only possible means of restoring, to a degree at 
least of its elemental purity, the life of the republic. Disease in 
political as in physiological science, ha^ its immutable laws, and is 
self-limited ; a crisis in our national existence was inevitable, and 
now that it is upon us, little perspicacity is required to feel its 
providential issues. Already it has subdued to a healthful calm- 
ness the tujiiultuous beatings of thousands of eager hearts, whose 
pulsations kept time only with the low throbbings of material 
care and selfish ambition ; already it has drawn together into 
more humane relations the different classes of society, and taught 
the great lesson of mutual dependence ; already it has made whole 
communities familiar "with an idea dearer than self;" it has ap- 
plied, and is ai>plying the test which distinguishes the patriot 
from the politician, the man from the coward, the true of heart 
from the worldly, the heroic from the frivolous; beneath the grave 
asj)ect of solicitude gleams the iioly light of sacrifice ; under the 
pressure of dismay rises the soul of faith ; youths suddenly have 
become men; women, angels of mercy, and pleasure-seekers re- 
sponsible citizens ; to the rich, the gifted, the eminent, and the 



CONCLUSION. 47 

obscure, there is now an ordeal whereby, in act and speech, is 
made apparent how much of reality, and how much of sham lies 
liidden in the Christianity they profess, and the manhood and 
womanhood they represent. But while the indirect and possible 
good of a resort to arms in this fierce war of opinion is acknowl- 
edged as a just inference by the student of social ethics, the direct 
and inevitable advantages are often ignored. The political revo- 
lution, however, as has been truly stated, has already " established 
the principle of emancipation ;" while a motive, such as no ab- 
stract reasoning could have enforced, is supplied by the interrup- 
tion of the cotton importation from the United States, for its in- 
creased culture elsewhere, thereby practically diminishing one of 
the most etfective causes of and apologies for slavery. Nor do we 
regard it as a trivial benefit that the test is thus applied to the 
principles of Christian governments abroad, as well as at home, 
by forcing into competition the appeal of self-interest and of 
humanity, of expediency and of Christianity. Even in the com- 
paratively languid policy of the government, under which journals 
bluster and telegrams inaugurate panics, there was a certain ad- 
vantage; it proved at least the absence of political vindictiveness 
eager to revenge the insults of faction ; it breathed a magnanim- 
ity in tolerating so long the treachery of the press and the tongue ; 
in liberating, after the oath of allegiance, so many captured 
traitors, and in refusing to act under the base excitement of un- 
christian hatred. AVe do not mean to justify the tardiness, or 
apologize for the inadequacy of the public functionaries ; but only 
to assert that their want of zeal, in the beginning, was a complete 
refutation of the incessant charge of partisan animosity as the ani- 
mus of the government. This slow recognition of the popular will 
also only serves more clearly to manifest the great truth — that on 
the people depends the result and rests the responsibility. This 
is, indeed, the lesson of all history in similar junctures of national 
life. It was the unconquerable spirit of the people that finally 
won religious freedom in the Netherlands, scattered the Spanish 
armada, and twice humbled the grasping pride of Great Britain 
on this continent; and it is the money, the wit, the patriotic sac- 
rifices, the strong arm, and the dauntless will of the people, that 
can alone rescue the name and the life of the nation from ruin 
and infamy. After the war of the Revolution, Washington, in 
his moderate language, declared we had now an opportunity of 
becoming a respectable nation ; improved in the virgin glow of 
national self-assertion, it has been abused more and more as it ex- 
panded ; and now, when wrong has culminated into portentous 
evil, another opportunity is vouchsafed ; an opportunity to purge 



48 THE REBELLION. 

tbe government of corruption, and to correct its charter by 
amendments, the necessity of whicli was foreseen by the wisest of 
its framers; an opportunity to uationalize political parties, and re- 
construct and reorganize the machinery while renewing the soul 
of the republic ; an opportunity to forswear private luxury and be 
loyal to public duty, to initiate frugal habits of life, to substitute 
statesmen for politicians, culture for gold-worship, comfort for os- 
tentation, integrity for extravagance, principle for policy, content- 
ment for ambition, and, above all, an opportunity to rehabilitate 
freedom; so vital may be the stern lessons of civil strife, so great 
the possible social amelioration and elevation consequent on this 
dire interruption to the ease, industry, and complacent self-seeking 
of our people. 



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